


The Greengrass Brother

by VentingNonsense



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-02-07 10:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1895814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentingNonsense/pseuds/VentingNonsense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Greengrass family generally refrains from talking about their estranged Squib family member. Then the Ministry had the gall to intervene at Hogwarts. So they sent him to teach there, as well. After all, what further damage could one Squib do? Except he's not a Squib, not exactly...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Play's the Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling. The Greengrass family is a canonical family (and canonically part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight), and Daphne is in Slytherin canonically (and Astoria is married to Draco, in the epilogue), but everything else is my brainchild, mixed with the brainchildren of the Harry Potter fandom. And when brainchildren mix together we get *babies*.
> 
> Incidentally, I have no idea what I'm doing.

The Greengrass family would be what you could call a normal Pureblood magical family. They followed the important circles, could trace their lineage back for generations like any self-respecting Pureblood (and were traditionally considered part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families), and followed all the traditional rotes and rituals that all Pureblood families were expected to follow. Despite all of the above being what would be considered Death Eater material, the Greengrass family were staunchly neutral in their outlook, neither supporting nor antagonizing the Death Eaters, and likewise doing the same towards the Order of the Phoenix.

In fact, they didn't particularly care one way or another about the news that the Ministry was to supplant the Hogwarts education, overriding the Headmaster's decisions. Traditionally, all Greengrass children were Sorted into Slytherin, the House with the least fondness for the Headmaster, so the Ministry's decree didn't affect them in the slightest.

And then they received word that _Dolores Umbridge_ , of all people, was to be the new Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"That -- accursed -- _wretch_!" Roxanne Greengrass fumed as her husband, Cyrus, tried desperately to calm her down. "How could _anyone_ think that this is a good idea?!"

"Now, now, dear, I'm sure that it isn't as bad as it appears."

" _Not that bad?!_ You've never met her before, have you?! She is, at once, the most unpleasant and utterly incompetent witch I have ever had the displeasure of meeting! And you're telling me that she was hired to teach our _children?!_ " Roxanne points at Cyrus accusingly, as if it's his fault that she is angry. "Even a _Squib_ would be a better professor than her!"

Suddenly, both of them fall silent. Then, "Huh." Cyrus strokes his beard, looking wistful. "There's an idea."

* * *

Henry Greengrass knew, once he woke up, that this day would be different. After years of his family ignoring him, he suddenly found an owl perched on his roof, bearing the Greengrass crest, and a note in its talons.

Reading the note, he scratched his scalp, trying to figure out what this meant. Fifteen years ago, his father ensured that he lived away from the family due to the rise of the Dark Lord. Although over the years he had popped by the Greengrass Manor, frequently at first, he hadn't done so since his education landed him in Japan five years ago; even before that, he dreaded those visits, as he was forced to accept them and had no real love for the manor he grew up in. In fact, once he accepted his new placement, he was nothing less than delighted, and was finally immensely satisfied with his place in life. And now his father wanted him to go _back?_

 _Well,_ Henry mused, _there must be a reason for it._ Henry never knew his father to do things without a good reason. Packing up his things, he idly wondered how he would keep his house.

Henry frowned. The house wasn't cheap, and even with student loans it was difficult for him to afford it. _Maybe I should just sell it, after all._ Or maybe his partner could spot some of the funds up front. He'd have to ask.

Making a note to his house-mate, Henry grabbed a packet of Floo powder and headed to their fireplace. Igniting it, Henry hoped that the Floo powder didn't outright break the electronic igniter. _Well, I'm sure I can Floo home regardless._ The fireplace roared to life, and he tossed Floo powder into the fire, turning cascading orange into furious green.

"Greengrass Garden," Henry intoned purposefully, and stepped through.

* * *

The Floo roared to life, and Henry stepped out into the manor. _Hasn't really changed much in three years._

The Greengrass manor hadn't physically changed in five years, except perhaps being noticeably dimmer.

Henry made his way to the dining room, where he was greeted by his parents.

"Artemis," his father coolly greeted him. Henry narrowed his eyes.

"I thought I told you _never to call me that_ ," Henry hissed out. "My name is _Henry_ , you miserable old man."

To his surprise, both of his parents refrained from reacting with more than a nod. "Apologies," his mother said, not sincere but also not sarcastic. Henry blinked.

"Really? No smart remarks about magic? No subtle comments about me disgracing the family name? Nothing about my chosen name?" Henry blinked again as his questions failed to garner a reaction. "Huh. Must be important. Okay, what's up?" Henry grabbed a chair and plopped down ungracefully, placing his feet on the table, and was mildly gratified to notice a displeased frown appear on his father's stoic face.

* * *

"You want me to _what_?" Henry asked disbelievingly for the fifth time.

"You will be a professor at Hogwarts in the upcoming term," replied his father.

"...why?" Henry asked, honestly stumped.

"Because the alternative is that horrid wretch," replied his mother, a bit irritated.

"She teaches _Defense_ ," Henry noted. "That's _kind of_ magically important."

"I don't trust that woman with my children," his mother said in response.

"Well, it's not like I can just _take over_ the Defense post," Henry said, ignoring the remark. "I don't know a damn thing about that subject other than it's more physical than people tend to expect. Besides, nobody would trust me to teach their kids anything 'magical'," he finishes with a grimace.

"Dolores doesn't know anything about it, either," his mother replied. "I know that for a fact. In fact, she barely passed that class with an E."

"And the Minister appointed _her?_ The hell is going on here?" Henry asked after a moment's pause. "Wait, an E is good, right?" he ended with a mumble.

"This has to do with the Headmaster more than anything educational," his father replied, choosing to ignore the mumbled comment. "The Minister seems to be operating under the delusion that Headmaster Dumbledore is amassing an army dedicated to overthrowing his rule."

Henry scoffed. "Is he for real? The Minister has full-blown _Aurors._ The Headmaster's only 'army' would be all school-children. Not exactly Auror-fighting material, there."

"You know that, _I_ know that," responded his father, "your mother knows that, and even the Headmaster himself knows that, but the Minister doesn't. I can guarantee this issue will be discussed in the Wizengamot."

"I have no idea what that is," Henry noted. "Well, if it comes up in discussion, point out that if he's so scared of that result then he should increase Auror funding and appoint reliable bodyguards, instead of...doing whatever it is he hopes to achieve with this result."

"Changing the subject," his father interjected, to Henry's exasperation, "how have your studies gone?"

"Reasonably well," Henry said, leaning back in his chair. "My studies have uncovered new evidence that I'm more than willing to apply to products. Plus, my partner and I have finished our thesis work."

"That's great!"

"We're planning on releasing new items -- oh, hello, Daphne," he waved merrily at his sister walking into the kitchen. She responded with little more than a nod. "Wow, you've turned her stoic. Nice work." His father nodded minutely, not realizing the joke. Henry rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we're planning on releasing a new product into the Japanese wizarding market. It's tough to work with, but I'm doing my best."

"You're doing your best; that's all that matters," his mother said. "Would you be able to attend to your business while being at Hogwarts?"

"Wait, what?" Daphne asked.

"I'm still thinking about if I even want to become a Professor. I mean, I'd have to talk to the Headmaster, and I don't even know if I can get to the castle," Henry said.

"You definitely can; there is already a Squib in their employ, one Argus Filch," his mother replied.

"Wait, _what?_ " Daphne asked again.

"The way I see it, nobody would question your involvement, since the Ministry honestly doesn't care about you and the Headmaster will undoubtedly be impressed with how you've managed to make a name for yourself," his father noted.

"Is there a spot for 'Runes' classes, d'you think?" Henry inquired, hand to his chin. "Not 'Ancient Runes', that's more of a language course than anything, I'm thinking 'Applied Runes' would be like something in my line of work."

 _"Wait, what?"_ Daphne asked a third time.

"Oh, you didn't hear? There's a person at the Ministry who is apparently not a good teacher so Mum and Dad are trying to get me to take her spot. I'm not going to but I'd be more than willing to be a professor of something else."

"You really should take the Defense class, Art-- _Henry_ ," his father stressed. "But, if you feel that strongly against it, then I will have to talk to Dumbledore and we will get something worked out."

"I _don't_ feel strongly about it. I just...don't particularly care one way or the other about it." Henry shrugged. Then he grinned. "That's the Greengrass way, after all."

The corners of his father's mouth tugged up near-imperceptibly. "Indeed." He leaned forward on his chair, hands covering his mouth. "As expected from my heir."

Henry's grin dropped abruptly and his face became stoic, his pose shifting to be slightly more polite. "I'm still...?"

"Of course." His father was definitely smiling now, even if it was a small smile. "You're the only person I'd trust with the family name. No offense, dear," he finished with a glance at his wife.

"None taken." Roxanne shrugged the offense off. "I agree with your assessment, after all."

"But not...?" Henry waved in Daphne's general direction. "Wouldn't you want a witch to be the heir? Or, 'heiress'?"

Daphne waved dismissively. "When I am to get married, my contract states that I will be forced to lose the name. Better a Squib than it falling into oblivion."

Henry stared at her. "There is so much wrong with that that I don't even know where to begin."

His mother sighed. "We had no choice; it was either take the contract or lose all of the prestige the Greengrass name still holds. Astoria, at least, has the ability to keep the Greengrass name. And, of course, there's you."

Henry's gaze shifted from his sister to his mother. "There is _always_ a choice." Henry's eyebrow quirked up. "Plus, Astoria? She's still a hopeless romantic, isn't she?"

"She's still young; she'll grow out of it," her mother waved dismissively, to which Henry scoffs.

"With an attitude like that, it's a wonder that Astoria didn't already just ditch the family and run off with some guy."

Everybody around Henry grimaced, and his father spoke up. "She's contracted to one Draco Malfoy, who she apparently already has a crush on, and the contract explicitly states that the second-born will be a Greengrass."

Henry stared at his father, and then burst out laughing. "Wow, you've really messed up big-time, dad!" Through his laughter, Henry managed to ask, "You know the Malfoys traditionally only have _one child,_ right?"

Cyrus stared at his son for all of three seconds before hitting himself in the face.

"And here I was convinced that you never did things without a good reason." Henry chuckled and got up from his seat. "Where is Tori, anyway? I haven't seen her in so long."

"I'm right here," replied Astoria, walking into the kitchen where everyone else is. "What are you talking about?"

"Your betrothal contract," Henry said. "And how the contract pretty much ruins our family."

"Oh." Astoria wrinkled her nose. "I don't like thinking about it."

Henry laughs. "Good! You're thirteen, you're too young to think about it anyway."

"Well, when _am_ I supposed to think about it?" Astoria pressed. "Just because I don't _like_ thinking about it doesn't mean I _don't._ "

Henry grinned wider, but didn't comment on her statement. "Missed you, Tori."

Astoria walked over to Henry and hugged him. "Missed you too, big bro."

"Are you going to accept the job?" his father asked, after Astoria released the embrace.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Henry waved dismissively. "Just make sure that you ask about an Applied Runes course before Defense." Henry turned around to leave.

"Of course, my son. We will see you soon," his father said.

"But not _too_ soon, I'd hope," replied Henry, before disappearing in flames.

* * *

_I can't believe I'm doing this,_ Henry thought, not for the first time, as he straightened out his collar. _Teaching at Hogwarts. Me._ Henry had already planned his departure from Japan, with his house-mate fully informed of the changes. He grabbed his bags and headed towards the front of his house, where his father waited for him.

"My son," Cyrus Greengrass intoned.

"Father," Henry replied in kind, nodding at him.

His father stuck out his arm, and Henry took hold of it, before they Apparated to somewhere on American soil, and then to right outside of Hogwarts, by the gamekeeper's cabin.

The male Greengrass duo strode towards the Headmaster's office, the older of the two walking quickly and purposefully, the younger walking lazily but easily keeping in stride. Henry's fears of not being able to see Hogwarts were unfounded; the castle was still visible to him, in all its magical glory. Henry suspected his father cast some sort of charm on him at some point without him knowing, but, as he was obviously otherwise unharmed, he let it go.

After a while, Cyrus and Henry stopped in front of a gargoyle statue. They paused for a moment, Cyrus taking his time to unravel a piece of parchment from his pocket, before stating clearly, "Cockroach Clusters." Henry quirked his eyebrow in clear amusement, and Cyrus shrugged minutely.

"Albus Dumbledore is very fond of sweets," he replied to Henry's obvious question. Henry let out an, "Ah," of understanding. The passageway opened and the two Greengrass men walked into the Headmaster's office. In the office was, of course, the Headmaster, as well as a middle-aged woman with long, brown hair.

"Ah, hello, Lord Greengrass!" Dumbledore said in his usual manner. "And who is this young man?"

"By God," Henry gaped openly. "I could lose _so much_ in that beard."

Both Cyrus and Albus looked at him. Henry sheepishly replied, "I just said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yes, quite." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled somehow as he said this. Henry decided not to look at his eyes and instead chose to stare at that _massive white beard._

"I take it you've received word of my suggestion?" Cyrus asked Dumbledore, who nodded. "This is him. Art-- _Henry_ , this is Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, and Professor Bathsheda Babbling."

"Nice to meet you," replied Henry, as serious as he could respond while staring at the beard. Dumbledore noticed this and chuckled.

"Yes, it is quite impressive. I'm rather proud of it, you know." Cyrus elbowed his son as Dumbledore continued. "I hear you have a proposal for a course?"

"Huh?" Henry got elbowed again. "Oh, right. My suggestion is to replace Ancient Runes, which is ultimately useless, with Applied Runes. Or, at the very least, supplant Ancient Runes with Applied Runes. There's more to Runes than the language and a lot of it is applicable around the world."

"Something you fail to understand, child, is that the study of ancient runes is a valued course to wizarding culture." Professor Babbling replied, sneering. Henry would be offended, but as his goal was to take over her class, he figured it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that she disliked him.

"I honestly don't care at all about that," Henry replied blithely, ignoring the Professor's outraged gasp and his father's disapproving frown. "You really can't do anything with the ancient runic scripts your class teaches, except _maybe_ reading ancient documents and designing ritual equipment, which are both frowned upon in wizarding Britain, anyway. And _nobody_ reads in Elder Futhark, ever. Besides, there are more modern approaches that do much of the same thing without a lot of the hassle."

" _Excuse me?!_ " Professor Babbling obviously didn't take this well at all, judging from her rapidly-reddening face and the veins bulging on her forehead. "I'll have you know that this course has important roots in history! Even Rowena Ravenclaw _herself_ approved of this course, and many historic figures have taken this course and succeeded in their lives!"

"No thanks to this course, obviously," Henry snarked.

As their conversation went back and forth, Henry's father stared at Dumbledore, who stared back.

"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore asked.

Cyrus thought about it for a moment, looked between his son and the professor, and then sighed. "Yes, please. I feel like I'll need it."

After watching the two bicker even more, Henry mentioned that "wow, you sure know a lot about history, why don't you just go teach that?" At that point, Dumbledore finally interrupted them.

"Yes, that _is_ a good idea."

Henry and Professor Babbling abruptly stopped and turned to the Headmaster, who had a twinkle in his eye.

"After all," Dumbledore said as he sucked on a lemon drop, "Professor Babbling, you certainly know a lot about historical figures. And Henry, your debate shows that you know more than most people on the subject of runic arrays in modern society.

How about a compromise? Henry -- or should I say, _Professor Greengrass_ \-- can become the new teacher of Ancient Runes, of which I will change the course title next year, and Professor Babbling here can become the new History of Magic teacher. After all, I feel that Professor Binns has been in service for long enough," Dumbledore finished with that same twinkle in his eye.

Henry and Professor Babbling ended up flapping their mouths wordlessly. Cyrus took this moment to interject.

"If it changes anything, I feel that this is a good idea."

Professor Babbling sneered. "Of course _you'd_ say that," she said caustically. "And, with all due respect, Headmaster, but you're willing to allow this...this _whelp_ to teach the most important course in all of Hogwarts? He's just a boy!"

"As Henry has just proven," Dumbledore pointed out, "he _does_ know what he's talking about."

"If it makes you feel any better," Henry interjects, "I honestly think you'd be a fantastic History of Magic professor."

Professor Babbling scowled at Henry, but her face turned from angry to thoughtful.

"So, next year, then? Give Professor Binns a chance to say his last goodbyes and give all the Ancient Runes students a year's notice, before I become their new professor?" Henry asked. "It sounds good to me."

"Why not do that for this coming term?" Dumbledore retorted. "After all, you seem ready to go."

Henry blinked. "That doesn't give any of us much time to prepare..."

Dumbledore chuckled. "People have always called me barmy. Even my supporters have occasionally called me a bit mad. Doing something like this is very unorthodox, I'll admit, but with the Ministry's coming changes, I have the feeling that I'll be losing a lot of power over my decisions in the coming days. Besides," his eyes twinkled again, "life's no fun without a few surprises here and there."

Henry grinned. "You, I like. You are a credit to life itself."

Professor Babbling abruptly walked off, shaking her head.

"Somehow, I'm not surprised that you'd do something as ridiculous as this," is the Professor's last parting shot. Dumbledore chuckles.

"Welcome to the faculty, Professor Greengrass."

* * *

Henry set his bags onto his new bed. The Headmaster was kind enough to allow him to live in the castle, in a room that was at once both secluded and close enough to the kitchens and his new classroom that Henry wasn't irritated by its location at all. Kicking off his shoes, he laid down on his bed and felt the fluffy pillows on his face.

Suddenly, the ghostly Professor Binns flew into the room and locked eyes with Henry. "YOU! CURSE YOU, BOY! You've taken my job away from me!"

Henry barely had time to let out a muttered, "Eep," as he rolled away from the ghastly spectre, grabbing a glove in the meantime. Standing upright, Henry inched towards the door and barely had time to grab the handle before the ghost came and tried to headbutt him again, so he was forced to jump away.

"Well, crap," Henry winced as he touched a small gash on his forearm. Apparently, Professor Binns was a ghost who could touch corporeal bodies and _actually injure others._ Henry put on the glove and scribbled out a quick runic array in mid-air, which launched a fireball at the ghost, who was knocked back by it but was otherwise unharmed.

Henry used the time the knockback gave to scribble a tiny runic array in shorthand runes using the blood from the small gash, which caused the door to explode violently. Henry ran away from the ghost, who was hot on his heels.

Henry hugged the wall as he ran, crafting runes on the wall with his glove, which fired all sorts of magical blasts towards the ghost, who ducked and weaved through the blasts, and pulled out a ghastly wand, firing spells at him.

 _Dammit, this year is going to suck_ , Henry thought as he was forced to weave through his blasts. _If I can't stop_ this _, then how am I supposed to stop the more unruly kids?_

Suddenly, he heard footsteps in front of him. Then, a flash of light, and Professor Binns abruptly stopped moving.

"Professor Greengrass, _what is going on?!_ " asked a somewhat disheveled Headmaster, as Henry caught his breath.

"That -- right there -- that's Professor -- Professor Binns," Henry said, holding up his now-profusely-bleeding arm in between gasps. "Probably -- probably could've done worse. Tried to -- hold him off."

"Well, that's enough of that," interjected Dumbledore. With a whip of his wand, ex-Professor Binns disappeared in a flash of light.

"Oh, _thank goodness_ ," muttered Henry, as his legs gave out in front of Dumbledore, not noticing the other Professors around him. Dumbledore passed him a spot of dittany which he used to patch up the wound.

"Who is this?" asked one of the professors.

"That's Professor Greengrass, Dumbledore told me about him," answered another professor.

"What I don't understand is, why didn't you use any spells to get rid of him?" asked one of the other professors.

Henry blinked and then laughed. Neither his father nor the Headmaster mentioned anything about his status to the professors, apparently, so he grinned and got back up from the ground on wobbly legs.

"What, my father didn't tell you? I'm a Squib."

As Henry limped back to his room, grinning and ignoring the Professors' shocked faces, he couldn't help but think that maybe this year wouldn't be so bad, after all.


	2. Please (Don't) Take Applied Runes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry teaches a class and then rides a cloud.

Henry first saw Dolores Umbridge ten years ago, at a formal party hosted at the Greengrass Manor. Henry knew back then that there was something suspicious about her, as his parents, mostly his mother, always looked a bit irritated when she came near them. He also remembered being distinctly wary of her whenever she looked at him with that patronizing gaze.

That wariness he felt before came back in full force when she stood up from her seat in the Great Hall to speak to the students.

Henry paid absolutely zero attention to her speech, quietly stood up from his spot on the table, and walked behind the Headmaster. Although the students noticed this, nobody on the staff table did.

Then he started grabbing candy from inside the Headmaster's beard.

Dumbledore stared warily at him before he realized what was going on, then he chuckled and grabbed some candy for himself.

"I, myself, am particularly fond of the Chocolate Frogs," whispered Dumbledore. Henry stared at the Frog in Dumbledore's hand in disbelief. Was it _croaking?_

"Personally I prefer the Pocky," Henry whispered back, waving a red box of the chocolate-covered sticks. "It reminds me of home."

"Ah, that's right, you came from Japan, did you not?" Dumbledore whispered. "It is a beautiful country."

"Bit weird, sometimes," muttered Henry, with a wink. "Or maybe that's just me. But yeah, I really love it there."

Because the students below started muttering and pointing at the two during their whispered discussion, the staff slowly turned to their esteemed Headmaster pulling candy out from inside his beard. Next to Henry, the Deputy Headmistress stared between the two with a twitch in her eye. Henry caught this and grabbed a handful of assorted-flavored drops from the beard, then stuck one in his mouth.

"Hey, Minerva, d'you want some?" he offered quietly, shaking his candy-filled fist in her general direction. She refused as politely as she could, under the circumstances. "How about you, Severus?" Said Professor sneered but remained silent, so Henry took this as agreement. He placed some on the table next to Professor Snape as he quietly walked back to his seat.

Henry actually didn't get to know his fellow co-workers all that well, but he was at least aware of them and knew their names, if only in passing. He figured it was mostly his fault, though, for not leaving his room until the Start-of-Term Feast. He did, however, take the liberty of calling them by their first names.

Throughout all this, Umbridge continued her speech, never once noticing the goings-on behind her.

"I think this has gone on long enough," announced Dumbledore once Umbridge appeared to stop, "but there is one more staff announcement to make. Please welcome the new professor for Applied Runes, Professor Henry Greengrass."

Polite clapping filled the Hall as Henry stood up to bow, but the majority of the people in the Hall groaned. Henry took a look at his sisters, who were rapidly trying to make themselves as scarce as possible in their seats, and ignored the urge to laugh at them. Instead, he grinned widely and mentally prepared his speech.

"Well, I know how to shut up, so unlike the person before me, I'll try to make this as fast as possible," Henry announced with a wink towards Umbridge, ignoring the rapid reddening of her face. Then he took a deep breath.

"The Study of Ancient Runes course is now the Applied Runes course and Professor Babbling is now the History of Magic teacher because Professor Binns tried to assault me the other day and it failed horribly and he's now exorcised but that's irrelevant to the fact that I'm your latest Runes teacher and Applied Runes is slightly different from the Ancient Runes course as the Ancient Runes course was a language study at best while Applied Runes has more applications in the real world and I'm also quite good at it although I've never actually taught it to schoolchildren but besides that I hope you all at least consider taking the course as I can assure you that it will be entirely worth it."

Henry stopped to take a few deep breaths. The students looked less irritated and more confused, which Henry took as a good sign.

"Also I'm a Squib and I hate you all," he finished with a grin and two thumbs up, then plopped down on his chair ungracefully and munched on a Pocky stick, ignoring all of the whispered comments erupting from the Hall. Dumbledore stared at him but Henry waved dismissively and so Dumbledore, after a few finishing comments, started the feast.

* * *

After taking a quick head check, Henry stood up from his desk and addressed his new class.

"Alright, hello, class, and welcome to the first ever class of Applied Runes in Hogwarts!" Henry watched all of his new class with a smile on his face. "Put your wands away and shut your gaping mouth-holes as I serenade your aural cavities all with information that will probably make your feeble little wizard-minds explode and almost certainly change your entire perception of magic."

"Why should we listen to _you?_ You're just a nasty little Squib," one Slytherin boy muttered, glaring at the Professor as if Henry was responsible for kicking his puppy or something. Henry thought it was rather adorable.

"And it is _exactly_ that attitude that makes me hate people like you!" Henry replied happily. "Thanks for volunteering for being the test subject for the week, I certainly appreciate it," he finished, winking at the boy.

"Now then," he continued, ignoring the boy's outraged reaction. "For those of you who don't know, I lived in Japan for five years, studying Oriental runic arrays and learning more about utilizing runes in a magical environment. I can tell you right now that Applied Runes are very important if any of you are interested in a job that takes you international; a lot of countries have very well-established 'rune societies', for lack of a better term, like the Russian Federation, the Nordic countries and, of course, Japan. These are people who spend their lives around runes, learning to shape and change their environment using only the ambient magic around them. I'm one of these people by association; my teacher while in Japan was a member of a prominent rune society and a master of using the environment, _any_ environment, to his advantage. It didn't hurt that he was also a wizard, the advantage of which I'll get to in a moment.

"I call them 'rune societies', although a better term would be 'magic camp', despite that sounding a bit disparaging. While technically I'm a squib, I'm also considered a magician; that is, someone who is able to manipulate magic. The difference between a wizard and a magician, overseas at any rate, are that wizards can inherently generate their own magic, whereas magicians have to rely on ambient magic. Let's talk a bit about that.

"Since you're all wizards, you'll have an inherent advantage over me: the ability to use runes at _any_ time, using your own generated magic. It's different for me, being non-magical. I have special devices," he pointed to his gloves, his arm sleeves, and his belt, "that hold magical charges so I can do the same, but they're a bit like Muggle batteries, in that they have a limit and they need to be recharged every so often. (No, keep your hands down, you don't need to know what Muggle batteries are.) Without them I'd have to rely on my physical strength, although I'm a pretty good hand-to-hand fighter, so don't try to take these things away from me or I will literally kick your butt. They're pretty much indestructible via magical means, though. The point is, I have to rely on all this stuff, whereas by the time you graduate you'll be able to do a bit of Applied Runes without relying on these things. There's also the bigger difference of you being able to perform spells with a wand, whereas I have to rely on runes. But that's a story and demonstration for another time.

"Now that my long-winded spiel is over, anybody have any questions?"

* * *

He repeated his speech verbatim for each and every one of his classes. A few of his students thought up interesting questions, but there were a bunch of people who glared at him distrustfully, muttering about the unfairness and/or uselessness of being taught by a Squib. Henry received a lot of 'volunteer test subjects' as a result.

Then, of course, there was his fifth-year class.

"What are you going to be teaching us, exactly? How long have you been studying this? Are you going to follow Professor Babbling's lesson plan? Is this going to help our OWLs and NEWTs? Have you even _taken_ your NEWTs? I read in _Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms_ that there were only a few kinds of runes, you know, and they had nothing about Oriental runes. How did you even get the job on such short notice? Why didn't the school inform us that our class was going to change? What will this mean for our grades?"

Henry listened to her rambling questions with one ear, idly wondering what kind of lungs the kid had to pull off a sentence like that without taking a breath. Then he realized that train of thought was rather hypocritical, so he decided to try to think of nothing. He didn't do so well.

When the girl finished speaking, Henry raised an eyebrow. "I'm assuming that, since you just rolled through your questions without waiting for me to respond, you didn't actually _want_ any answers and just wanted to hear your own voice. That's fine, but please do that in your own time. Moving on."

When the girl moved to open her mouth, Henry added, "Also, that'll be five points from Gryffindor for wasting my time." She shut her mouth and glared at him. He smiled innocently back.

He heard sniggering in the corner of the room and spotted a familiar mop of blonde hair. "Is something funny, Ms. Greengrass?"

Daphne was going to respond with her usual snark, but then she looked at Henry's face. His eyes were cold, hard, and menacing, despite the obvious smile on his face. She gulped minutely, unnoticeable to anyone but Henry. "Um, nothing, sir."

The people around her started whispering, so Henry pointed out one of them. "You, with the black hair. What are you doing." It wasn't a question.

"'Um, nothing, sir,'" the girl replied snootily, obviously mocking his sister's answer. Henry raised his eyebrow.

"Five points from Slytherin." When the girl made to object, Henry interrupted her. "Did you know that I've already taken upwards of fifty points from Slytherin today? I'm completely willing to take more."

"You can't _do_ that! You're nothing more than a Squib!"

Henry's arms twitched and his arm bands started to glow. "Is that so?" he said innocently, despite the obvious hardening of his eyes. "I suppose you're correct. Then again," he bent towards his desk and traced runes over the top. Fireworks started shooting from the top of the desk, exploding in a miasma of noise and flickering lights. The students recoiled in shock and surprise.

"Also," Henry continued innocently, as if his desk didn't just shoot fireworks from out of nowhere. "Thanks for volunteering to be the test subject for the next two weeks or so. I really appreciate it."

"That...that was just a _trick!_ Squibs like you can't do magic!" one foolhardy girl said.

Henry stared at her, all amusement gone from his face. "Detention tonight, and twenty points from Ravenclaw." She immediately protested, of course, but Henry completely ignored her.

"The next time someone decides to foolishly insult _my life's work_ ," he said in a near-growl, "I will take more than points from them. I'm only letting you off this once, _girl,_ because you were unaware of just how seriously I take my subject, but do it again and I will use all of my substantial power to fail you out of the course."

Amid gasps, Henry looked at all of the students in turn. "This class is more than a theoretical course designed to help you pass your OWLs and then allow you to completely forget about it afterwards. This class is the introduction to the origins of magic itself, and will allow you to gain a deeper understanding of magic. Your magic, and the magic of other beings, and magic in general. _If you choose to let it._ If you want to dismiss everything I say as useless, then you will fail this course. If you want to treat this course with mockery and scorn, then you will fail this course. If you are going to treat me with contempt because I'm 'nothing more than a Squib', _you will fail this course._

"This class has the potential to _change your life._ It can be either the _most important class_ in Hogwarts, or the most pointless, and it all depends on your attitude and your choices. Take it seriously, and you will be rewarded with more knowledge than you can currently imagine. Slack off and you will learn _nothing_. You will get a grade of _nothing._ _You will be **nothing.**_ "

Henry noticed that his students were now looking at him in awe and not a little bit of fear. "But, yeah, it's kind of just a trick." He grinned at the girl he gave detention to, who looked faintly vindicated but mostly terrified. "I'll talk about the trick to it later in the year. By the way, I changed my mind about the detention, but the point deduction stands."

"Will we learn to do that?" the question-firing girl from earlier asked, as she fired her hand up in the air. Henry grinned wider as he noticed that she only asked one question. _Good, some people can learn._

"Probably not. It's a lot more difficult to apply runes to thin air, and that's way more advanced than what I'm supposed to be teaching. But I'm sure some of you can figure it out by the time you graduate." Then he tilted his head. "But, um, you don't have to raise your hand."

* * *

All in all, Henry thought it was a rather positive day. He was mildly thankful that his father gave him oration lessons every so often, but he was still irritated that they were necessary. _On the plus side, I'm still the heir, so it wasn't utterly useless._

Striding to the Great Hall, he noticed a group of Slytherins walking towards him angrily, some of whom were chosen to be his volunteers, so he knelt down and pulled a stack of parchment out of his pocket. As they stopped in front of him, as if making a human wall, Henry activated the pre-selected runes on the parchment. Steam flowed out of the stack, turning it into a cloud; Henry jumped on the cloud and it flew towards the Great Hall, faster than he expected. He idly heard more gasps of outrage or anger or something but focused on steering the damn thing.

Upon his arrival at the Great Hall, he hovered above his seat for a few seconds, then released the cloud. Parchment fluttered harmlessly onto the desk as he landed haphazardly onto his seat.

"I, uh, I didn't do it," he said dazedly as he straightened himself out, noticing that everyone was staring at him. "That was, um, yes. Experiment. Yes," he coughed, shifting in embarrassment. He cleared his throat. "Cheers," he tipped his cup to Dumbledore, then drank his water.

"What in the world...?" asked Professor McGonagall, wide-eyed. Henry continued drinking and pretending to be oblivious to the comments of the other professors.

"That was certainly...interesting," remarked Dumbledore. Henry placed his glass down.

"Interesting. Yes." Henry looked shifty. "Not the word I'd use, but...interesting. Yes."

"How in the world did you do that?" Dumbledore asked, looking intrigued and not in the least bit concerned. "That must have been done by rune work, but that seems more advanced than even I could do."

"Well," Henry pulled out parchment. "I wanted to test if it was possible to stack multiple runes onto something as thick as parchment and have them interact properly. To make a long story short, _yes I can._ " He shrugged and stared at the surprised smattering of students. "And you can do this too if you study Applied Runes for a few years!" He laughed. "Haha, shameless self-promotion. Join my class."

* * *

And the weeks flew by.


	3. Some Sort Of Stick Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry gets scared of a cat, and then dispenses wisdom like a moron.

Henry picked up another student's essay. _The worst part about this job is the grading,_ he mused. Throwing the clock another glance, he mentally sighed and read through the essay. _I really should have thought about this before taking this job._ At a glance, it was mostly wrong, but Henry saw through the terrible essay-writing skills of this particular student, and noticed that she did, at least, understand some of the theory. _That much, at least, is better than some of my other students._

After that display in the Great Hall, word-of-mouth spread ridiculously fast in the halls of the castle, and Henry gained a solid chunk of new students. Unfortunately, most of them considered it a "cool" class and failed to take into account that the course was actually really intense. Their classwork was _abysmal_ at best, and they rarely, if ever, actually paid attention in class.

Henry chose to emulate his own teachers, so Henry had stringent rules in place. Many, _many_ of the students chose to disregard them, and were likewise surprised that Henry chose to give out point deductions and detentions like candy.

Henry didn't like doing detentions because that meant he had less free time to study. What people tended to ignore was that runes were very personally important to Henry, as they were his only grasp of magic in a magic-less world.

 _Wait a minute,_ he jumped up after finishing grading his papers. _Isn't there a Squib in the castle?_ He knew, more than most, the pain of being the only person in any given room without the free use of magic. _A man who, for most of his life, has been surrounded by magic, yet unable to grasp it. Someone who has to listen to the constant whining of wizards and witches that take their magic for granted, and had wallowed in jealousy and envy for decades._

_That sounds like what I could've been._

With that comforting thought, he put his blazer on and strode out of his room, intent on finding one Argus Filch.

* * *

He found one Argus Filch lurking in the corridors, muttering to himself. _What a pleasant demeanor,_ he idly noted.

"What? Who's there?" Filch seemed irritated. Henry tried to make himself known in as peaceful a manner as he could, but Filch's cat jumped out of his hands and hissed at Henry, who jumped.

" **GAH!** " Henry shouted in fear. "WHY? **CAT!** WHY, _HOW,_ **WHAT!** " Henry realized that it was probably a horrible time for his ailurophobia to kick in as he sprinted away.

 _I suppose I'll have to try again some other time,_ Henry thought idly after he regained his breath.

* * *

"Hello, Argus," he finally managed to greet Filch as he looked anywhere but the cat in his arms.

"You, you're that new professor, aren't you?" Filch looked suspicious. "The new Squib one, what's his name..."

"Henry. Professor Henry Greengrass," Henry introduced himself. "I'd offer to shake your hand but you're holding a cat."

"Ah, what? Hold on a sec, I'll just put her down."

"Wait, no, it's really not necessary..."

"Here ya go, dearie, you can get down now." Filch let his cat out of his arms.

"WHAT **NO** PLEASE OH GOD _GET IT AWAY FROM ME!_ " Henry screamed as he ran off again. Mrs. Norris turned away from the screaming professor to stare at her owner, cocking her head in apparent confusion.

Filch scratched his head. "Well, some people just ain't cat people," he shrugged.

* * *

_Third time's the charm,_ Henry thought angrily. _Third time had_ better _be the charm._

"Hello again, Argus," he greeted Filch once again, who eyed him warily.

"You're not a cat person, are you?"

Henry laughed. "Very much not so! I'm terrified of cats."

"Really?" Filch looked dubious. "How? Cats are adorable. Why, just look at Mrs. Norris," he pet the cat in his arms.

"I can't explain it," Henry admitted honestly. "It's really the thought of touching a cat that gets me, but I just, eurgh, can't stand cats," he finished with a shiver.

After a pause, Filch snorted. "You're weird."

Henry grinned. "Very much so."

"You know you're wearing gloves, right?" Filch pointed out.

Henry looked at his hands. "So I am. It does actually help." He chuckled. "My reactions are usually much worse."

Filch sighed. "What do you want from me, boy?"

Henry reached into his pocket for a stick covered in runes. "I wanted to test something. Give this a wave, please."

Filch grabbed the stick. "It looks like a wand. You know I'm a Squib, right?"

Henry grinned. "So am I. Give it a wave, please."

Filch shook it a bit and threw it on the ground with a yelp. Mrs. Norris jumped out of his hands again.

"What just happened?"

"The ruddy thing burned me!" Filch scowled. "Was it supposed to do that? Because -- wait, where did you...?"

Filch looked to his left and saw that Henry was no longer there. So he turned to his right.

Henry was perched precariously on a suit of armor, holding on for dear life.

"That's it? Just hot? Well, that's good. Probably great, even," Henry said while staring terrified at Mrs. Norris. She lifted her paw and Henry flinched.

Filch decided to give him a bit of mercy and picked up his cat. "Well, what does it mean?"

"It means," Henry decided, jumping off of the suit of armor. "It means I can probably give you some of my stuff." He picked up the stick and examined it. "Might end up making some sort of cleaning equipment for you." He flicked the stick and some of the runes started to glow. "That's weird. I'll have to examine this more."

Filch looked startled but pleased. "So I can do those magic tricks you do?"

"Eventually, yes," Henry acquiesced. "But it takes a long time to learn how to do them yourself, and they're only tricks, in the end." He sighed and frowned. "For people like you and me, that's probably the best we can get."

"You can make me magic things? So I can do spells and such?" Filch stared at him hopefully. "I've been here for roughly two decades. Tricks are more than enough."

Henry stared at him blankly, then broke out into a genuine smile. "I suppose you're right." He turned thoughtful and walked towards his room. "Expect something for Christmas, Argus."

* * *

As soon as he got comfortable at his desk, Henry pulled out the stick Filch waved days before. He stared at the rune-covered stick in contemplation. Frowning in consternation, he scribbled some equations down on paper. 

Argus Filch, according to the runes, was more than capable of performing the magic tricks that Henry could do. Filch had an unusually high amount of magical residue on his body, causing him to be more attuned to the feel of magic than many other magicians that Henry had ever met. _Given enough time, he could even be better than me._

Because of his constant presence in a highly-magical area, Filch had adapted his body subconsciously to feel out the magic in certain areas; a phenomenon so incredibly rare, that the only other person Henry knew of that had that ability was his partner and best friend. Henry realized that he had to teach the man how to utilize that ability consciously. He prepared a note to his friend.

Heading over to the Owlery, Henry paused and listened to the wall. _What is that noise?_

"...we can't get caught by anyone! Especially not Filch, he'll get us into so much trouble!"

"Hello, children!" Henry smiled. "Might I inquire politely as to what sort of eccentricity you are performing here?" He tilted his head. "Perhaps some sort of odyssey into Nyx's domain?"

The (what he assumed to be) third-year kids looked at each other. "What?"

Henry's smile dropped. "What are you doing, so late at night?"

"Well, um, we..."

"You know the rules, kids. Fifty points from each of you."

"You can't do that to us!" one of the three kids shouted, offended for some reason. Henry idly realized that fifty points was kind of a lot, but then got over it.

"Sure I can," Henry said, slightly dumbfounded. "I'm a _professor._ "

"No you're not!" he shouted. "You're a Squib! You probably lied your way to your post! You're not even a good Professor!"

"Wow." Henry stared at the kid, mildly hurt. "You haven't even taken my class and you have such a low opinion of me."

"I'm not going to take a class from some stupid Squib," the kid ranted, and Henry stared at him in complete amusement. He stared at one of the other kids, a girl, and quirked an eyebrow. _Is he serious?_ His message seemed to have gotten through to her, as she shook her head despondently. Or, at least, Henry assumed she was despondent. It was rather hard to tell, this late at night. The kid continued ranting, so Henry cut him off.

"I'm neither confirming nor denying those statements," Henry said, before leaning towards the kid. "But I'm also a Greengrass, and the heir incumbent, to boot. What are you going to do about it?"

The kids recoiled, but the idiot boy bravely pushed on. "You're lying! The ancient and noble house of Greengrass wouldn't lower themselves to--"

"Really?" The girl's eyes were sparkling. "So you really are related to Astoria?"

"Um, yes." Henry blinked at the non-sequitir. "I'm her older brother."

"Prove it!" that idiot boy shouted. Henry heard a movement in the corner of the hallway, but chose to ignore it. "Astoria is our friend and..." He fell silent.

"If she's your friend, why isn't she here with you?"

"She's under suspicion for being related to a Squib," another boy replied coolly. "The House is merely ignoring her for the moment, but it may eventually turn into hostilities." The boy was remarkably eloquent, Henry idly thought.

"That's stupid," Henry said bluntly, ignoring the surprise of the children. "You can't choose your family, much like you can't choose the House you're Sorted to. And so what if Astoria is related to me? I'm the _heir_ , chosen by the current head himself. She doesn't really have a choice."

"You obviously tricked the head, then," the insufferable boy continued, but Henry noticed that his anger was waning.

"Um, no." Henry blinked again. "How would I do that? You _just_ said I was a Squib." He raised an eyebrow. "Or am I suddenly somehow capable of tricking a wizard with my Squib powers? Because, I mean, it's one or the other."

The insufferable boy stopped looking angry, and the girl spoke again. "You really _are_ Astoria's brother," she looked at him in awe. "Astoria talks exactly like you."

Henry laughed. "Oh, man, I am _so_ rubbing that in her face next time I talk to her." Then he frowned. "Wait. You're her friends?"

"Um...yes?"

"Why are you not over there consoling her?" Henry asked, completely blasé. "I'm pretty sure she doesn't exactly like being alone like Daphne does. If anything, you should be spending your time being friends with her instead of whatever you're doing here."

"We're here because we're trying to help her!" the girl insisted. "We're going to convince Professor Snape to help her."

Henry winced. "Ouch. Seems like you don't really like her." The kids looked at each other, confused and angry, and Henry explained. "You're over here plotting something that may or may not get you in more trouble, and meanwhile, my sister is probably feeling the acute pangs of loneliness. You should be supporting her directly, but instead you're over here not...really doing anything productive."

"But--" the girl started to interject, but Henry continued.

"To make matters worse, other people are tormenting her, and you're over here leaving her to fend for herself." Henry frowned.

"It's not like we can openly support her," the angry boy said, oddly subdued. Henry raised an eyebrow.

"Then don't." The kids looked at each other again. Henry merely tilted his head back. "You're Slytherins. Do something cunning, not this...ridiculously brash behavior that would merely make the other snakes dislike you even more. Do something else, like..." He tilted his head in another direction. "Support her from the shadows. That's what Slytherins should do, after all." Henry grinned suddenly. "And this whole 'being harassed by other Slytherins' is entirely silly. I'm going to talk to Severus later, anyway, to discuss my sisters. So there was really no reason for you to be out here."

The kids looked more excited, and as they were discussing their new plans _in plain sight_ , Henry coughed, causing them to look at him. "Um. You should plan in more hidden spots, and always be on the lookout, I guess? I mean, you'll never know who's listening to you." He pointed to the direction of the corner of the hallway. "For instance, someone could be over there, listening to you, getting information on whatever you're trying to do, and then could make counter-plans to make sure they all backfire. Not...not really a good idea here." He scratched the back of his head, then relaxed. "Ah, well, anyway, fifty points each for helping a friend." The kids all beamed, and Henry groaned. "I still hate you all," he muttered, but the kids simply smiled more at him. "Bah, get _out_ of here, you brats." They scampered away excitedly.

As soon as they were out of sight, Henry called out, "Hello, Argus."

Filch rounded the corner, Mrs. Norris in hand, as he gazed skeptically upon the smiling, but still nervous, visage of the only other Squib in Hogwarts. "Who were you talking to?"

"You know who I was talking to," Henry retorted. "I'm not stupid, I heard you over there." Filch looked sheepish.

"Ah, you got me." Filch then shot an accusing glare at him. "That was _some_ advice you gave them. 'Plan in hidden spots'? Are you trying to make my job harder for me?" d "What? No!" Henry looked offended. "I'm not trying to do anything like that! Besides, you guys know everything there is to know about the castle."

Filch merely hummed. "You know, Dolores came up to me the other day and said something similar to that." Henry's face blanked. "I thought so. You don't like her, do you?"

"To be fair, she started it," Henry retorted, but he was entirely expressionless. Filch wondered how deeply his hatred ran. "There is the small little problem that she almost certainly detests me, through no fault of my own, but besides that, the laws she passes as the Senior Undersecretary are geared towards the suppression of other magical beings. Anyone who willingly supports the slavery of any other sentient creature, whether it be Being or not, is someone who should be treated with disgust, not worship." Then the life came back to his eyes, and Henry sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Um, sorry about that. I don't really like her."

"Yes, I gathered that," Filch replied blandly. 

"Not going to go after them?" Henry asked.

"Bah, I couldn't catch them, anyway. I'm far too old," Filch said, grinning. Or at least Henry _assumed_ it was a grin.

Henry blinked. "Did you just make a joke?"

Filch cackled. "You'll never know, boy!"

As Filch walked away, Henry shook off his shock and chased after him. "Wait, Argus! Was that a joke? I swear you just made a joke! You _never_ joke!"

After hearing Filch's parting call ("You just haven't seen me joke before!") Henry shook his head. Filch seemed a lot more happy whenever he was around, Henry thought, and he made a mental note to try to keep in contact with him.

* * *

Later that night, before going to bed, Henry looked into his coat pocket and found the letter he forgot to send. He groaned. "Fine, I'll do it tomorrow."


	4. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry teaches another class and shrugs a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author’s Note:** As a future warning, I really like beating up Astoria. I don’t know why. The weirdest part is that it’s only her that I like beating up, and it happens in every Harry Potter story I write. I may only have one up right now but I have like four I’m trying to write the first chapter of, and they all inevitably have Astoria in some sort of injured manner.
> 
> Of course, one of them is an Astoria that is basically Asura’s Wrath mixed with Broly from Dragon Ball Z, with a touch of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid. Basically an Angry Marine. So maybe it’s not _all_ bad.
> 
> Also, fair warning: I get _wordy._ I was going to actually further the plot more in this chapter, but it’ll have to wait.

After finally getting around to sending that letter three days later, Henry strolled down to his classroom and prepared for his first class of the day. Or he would have, had the entire room not been covered in vandalism. Messages, most of them disturbing, violent, or some mixture of the two, covered the walls and desks. On the board was the word “SQUIB” written in all capitals, and the golden text was pulsing and writhing like worms. The lights were somehow not working properly, with them flashing and flickering intermittently. He decided to leave it up there regardless and went to his desk, placing his bags under the desk.

As the first of his class came in, he took the time to adjust his arm sleeves and gloves.

“Professor, what is this?” one student meekly asked. Henry couldn’t really tell who it was thanks to the lights flickering on and off.

“Some messages. Not to worry, class, it was like this when I got here and it’ll be gone by the end of the class,” Henry assured them. “I think.” The students looked suitably unimpressed.

“Do you need help removing them?” one girl asked as the lights flickered back on. Henry shook his head.

“Like I said, I can take care of it. Here’s a challenge, though, and it’s a simple one: decontaminate your own desks. Go on, then,” Henry urged as nobody moved. He then pulled out a pair of customized omnioculars and placed them over his eyes.

“Um…how do we do that?” one girl asked, as Henry flicked through another option on his omnioculars.

He grinned and replied, “Any way necessary, as long as it doesn’t destroy the school’s equipment. Extra credit will be given to those who succeed. Go for it!”

There was a knock on the door, and as the fifth-years tried to undo the contamination, Henry asked the nearest student to open the door. Filch appeared, stopping at the blatant amount of vandalism in the room.

“Ah, do you need help here, Professor?” he asked, shifting his eyes distrustfully towards the students.

“What did I tell you, Filch? Just ‘Henry’ is fine, thanks. Also,” he tilted his head towards the board. “Did _you_ know I’m a Squib? Because I had _no idea._ ” He gestured to the board as more students pooled into the class. “Whoever wrote this is kind enough to let me know! People who just walked in: extra credit if you can decontaminate your own desk.”

“Are you _sure_ you don’t need help getting rid of all of this?” Filch asked again. Henry rolled his eyes.

“Yes, completely. This isn’t even _good_ spellwork, it’s easy to break.” Henry grinned. “You might want to pull up a chair, though. You might find this interesting!”

Once every student was in the room, and half of the chairs were decontaminated, Henry grinned again and tapped his desk with the wristband of his glove. The entire room lit up in glowing blue runic arrays, more advanced than any student had ever seen before, and the remaining vandalism slowly disappeared. The lights finally turned back on.

“Today,” Henry continued, as if he didn’t just dispel a room’s worth of advanced charms work, “we will be talking about runic arrays. Specifically, the very basics of how to layer runes into arrays. But first, who can tell me how magic works?” At the lack of raised hands, even by the bushy-haired girl, Henry arched an eyebrow. “Really? Nobody?

“Well, then, let me go over the basics of _that_ , first. I’ve heard people in the United States talk about ‘magical cores’ and ‘magical power’; I can tell you right now that they are a myth. Besides which, you should never listen to an American; they are usually wrong. And obsessed with violence. Anyway, the actual _substance_ of magic is based on what science calls ‘quantum mechanics’. That is something you don’t really need to know about, except this: the building blocks of nature are atoms, and atoms are made up of particles, and these particles’ movements affect each other, and down the line they make literally everything you see here.” He stretched his arms and waved them around himself. “That’s basically what you need to know about quantum mechanics; here’s something about magic. Magic, too, is affected by these particles. Not the atoms that particles make up, as that would imply that magic has mass, which is absurd, but the particles of the particles are what magic affects and is affected by. I’m losing you guys, sorry, I’ll try to explain how this is relevant.

“There’s a scientific theory called string theory, which postulates that every little particle is eventually made up of ridiculously infinitesimal ‘strings’. The phenomena is not exactly how magic works, but it is surprisingly close; magic is made up of, instead of something physical like a string, the ‘imaginary’ force of probability. Magic is, in essence, probabilities,” he paused for a moment and then decided to write everything down on the board. “These ‘probabilities’ are found in, literally, everything. From light, to sound, to the visible and the tangible, even to things like memory and imagination: _everything is magic._ The thing about wizards are that, due to some quirk of particles, they generate what is known as a ‘magical field’, and can affect these ‘magic’ particles thanks to this magical field.

“I said a few classes ago that ‘wizards can generate their own magical fields, and squibs and Muggles can’t.’ Okay, maybe I didn’t say it like that, but that’s kind of what I meant to say, and that was wrong, anyway, because if we didn’t have our own magical fields, spells wouldn’t affect us, which obviously doesn’t actually happen. Nearly every person on the planet, Muggle or not, has a magical field. The exceptions are incredibly isolationist, and even these exceptions are dwindling in number. Squibs, as you refer to them, are people, born to people that manipulate magical fields, who can not; this doesn’t mean we don’t have one, we simply _can’t manipulate ours._ ” Henry stared at the listeners through his omnioculars, and continued. “Now, here’s the biggest kicker, and the reason this isn’t well-known in England: genetics, that is, blood status and family bonds, do _nothing_ to the magical field. In truth, everybody has the same ‘magical power’ because magical fields are _always the same._ But, yes, some are more attuned to theirs than others; this can apparently be achieved by practice, but I wouldn’t know.” He shrugged. “I can’t manipulate mine, you see, so I can’t check.” Then he continued with his lecture. “And when one is exposed to a magical field often enough, they learn to attune themselves to their own magical field; this is how 90% of wizards and witches in the world come about. This is the biggest reason a wand is so important: it helps you attune yourself to your magical field, more than you would otherwise. This is also why spells work the way they do.

“Probabilities are inherently orderly, though.” He winced as the chalk in his hand broke. “So it’s reasonably simple for scientists to understand, via controlled tests, how magic works the way it does, and we can thus consider the concept of magic to be ‘scientifically understood’. Let’s pretend magic is sentient for a minute. How would it _know_ to change a matchstick into a needle? After all, it doesn’t actually know what a needle _is_. And if it _did_ know what a needle was, then why couldn’t it just spontaneously transform it itself? In reality, and not that silly ‘sentient-magic’ fiction we were pretending, the answer is simple: _the intent of the user,_ which, in magician’s lingo, is referred to as ‘generation’ due to…a mistranslation somewhere down the line, I think. Magic, despite being chaotic in nature, is very easy to control for those attuned to their magical fields. You may have heard that spells are divided up in three parts: the intent, the wandwork, and the vocalized word. This is for a reason: the intent controls the magical field, the wandwork manipulates the field, and the word confirms the field’s direction.

“Now, although this generalization is _mostly_ correct, this obviously doesn’t always hold true, since wandless and wordless and wordless wandless magic are clearly possible. This is because, in actuality, _none of the above are necessary._ Which sounds absurd, right? It does! But it’s true.” Henry smiled. “I know this because, despite everything I just said, I can manipulate magic. I can’t do it with a wand, or with intent, but I can use runes to simulate intent, wandwork and the vocalized word. Science has broken down the bare essentials of magic to be the existence of a ‘magical field’…and that’s it. That’s all that’s necessary. This is, in principle, how both runes and potions operate. Now, me saying I can manipulate magic…isn’t true, because technically speaking, it’s the _runes_ that are manipulating the magic, even if they aren’t sentient, and I still can’t manipulate my magical field by myself, so I’m still considered a Squib, even if I’m technically a magician. Now, we can talk about runes.”

Henry took a break from talking by swigging some water from his drinking bottle. Ignoring the glazed eyes of the portion of his class he had absolutely no hope for, he noticed that there were still a solid amount of people still interested in the lecture. Henry was oddly pleased by this, so he finished drinking and continued speaking.

“Runes are a physical manifestation of magic. Even if magic itself isn’t physical by its very nature, runes are a way to manipulate magic through the written word. Ancient wizards used what is considered in the Muggle world to be ‘cuneiform’. Nowadays, what we consider Ancient Runes is what the Muggles consider to be ‘Elder Futhark’, although there are more differences than similarities between Ancient Runes and actual Futhark. The runic word itself doesn’t mean anything unless it is charged by a magical field, in which case it takes on the properties of the individual runes making up the word. This aspect of runes, the individual rune work, will be leading up to what I expect all of you, as fifth-years, to be able to do: runic arrays. You will be able to write multiple runes that, despite all semblance of logic, can and will change and manipulate the environment around you, which is exactly what magic _does._

“I kind of just rambled there, but let’s summarize up today’s lecture.” Henry grinned. “Magic? It’s like a giant invisible balloon over literally everything. Runes are basically depictions of physical magic. Any questions?”

The bushy-haired girl with the questions raised her hand, then put it back down sheepishly (Henry nodded in approval) and asked, “But…how would I have magic? I’m Muggleborn, so I’ve never been exposed to magic before Hogwarts.”

“Ah, that’s part of the 10% of wizards and witches in the world. Rarely, a person attunes themselves to their magical field sporadically; this is where what you’d call ‘Muggleborns’ come from.” Henry winked. “Congratulations, you’re a rare phenomenon. Incidentally, so am I; Squibs are rarer than Muggleborns, because of the mere fact that Filch and I _cannot_ manipulate ours.” Henry shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you why not, I have scientist friends who also can’t explain it, but that’s what the runes are for. But sometimes, very rarely, even more rarely than the appearance of Squibs and Muggleborns, a perfectly average Muggle does accidental magic. But it’s not as widely acknowledged, because Muggles then simply call it a miracle. Next question?”

A boy asked, “If intent is the only thing necessary for manipulating magic, then how does the magic recognize intent? Since the brain is also affected by magic, right?”

Henry shrugged. “I know that there have been papers written about it but I can’t understand any of them,” he sheepishly admitted. “It has something to do with recursion, but I can’t say anything in more detail, because I honestly don’t know. I’ll look it up and let you all know as soon as I can. Next question.”

Another girl raised her hand. “Wouldn’t you technically be able to…’generate’ your own magical field? Even though you’re a Squib?”

Henry shook his head. “I can’t feel my field, so I can’t attune to it. This is supported by rigorous testing: after the age of eighteen, it is statistically impossible for an average person to become attuned to their magical field. This isn’t _literally impossible_ , per se, but it’s very, very unlikely, to the point where it’s just much, much easier to say that it’s impossible. The optimal age to attune your magical fields, by the way, is eleven; that’s when it stops growing and when your body is most susceptible to it. That’s why Hogwarts starts at eleven. Although, in reality, everyone has a chance to become attuned to, or ‘generate’, their magical fields until they hit sixteen; then the difficulty curve sharply increases, to the point where it’s next-to-impossible for a person of eighteen years of age. Next question.”

The bushy-haired girl from before shot her hand up again but talked anyway. Henry stifled a grin. “What do you mean, ‘feel a field’? You can’t actually _feel_ magic, that’s _absurd!_ ”

Henry turned skeptical. “Really? You’ve never felt a slight tingling when you’re around magic?” At some students’ fervent head-shaking, he shrugged. “It’s probably subconscious for you at this point, but back when you were first around magic, you probably did feel _something_. I mean, it’s entirely possible to feel magic as an adult, because Professor Flitwick did it all the time when he dueled. Apparently, from what we can understand, babies can calm down when their parents come around thanks to the magical field. The parents generally have a more stable field regardless of being Muggle or not, since that’s determined by age alone, but the parents’ intent is usually to calm the baby. That, even in Muggles, is usually enough for the magical field to be manipulated enough to calm the baby. But remember, Muggles generally can’t manipulate magic, even with intent, so the magical field actually doesn’t get manipulated. So, skipping ahead a few more explanations and experiments, we know that the mere presence of a magical field is enough. And as a result, we know that babies somehow can feel magical fields, although the feeling dulls as we age.” Henry then grimaced. “And thanks to my parents, I can’t feel it at all, and never really could. But let’s not talk about that. Next question.”

The questions kept coming, and Henry was rather pleased about the intelligence of most of the questions, even if he couldn’t answer all of them. _No wonder my Sensei enjoyed teaching so much,_ Henry mused. _Children are_ inquisitive. _It’s kind of fun._ A timer buzzed on his desk, and Henry glanced at it.

“All right, class is over. Your homework is to read pages eighty-two through ninety-five and answer this one question as thoroughly as you can: with your newfound knowledge of magic and the runic word, explain how you would change the runes in the, I believe it is the third, example in your textbook so it poisons instead of filters water.” He smiled as the class got up to leave. “Due next class!”

* * *

Astoria winced as she hobbled to the Great Hall. At first, it seemed like her friends deserted her, but then they came back and ‘secretly started supporting her in the shadows’, as one of them explained. Astoria didn’t care as much as she would have if she were truly alone, but they were still a bit late in the support. She noticed the Slytherin table had a certain professor sitting there, so she walked up to him.

“Tori!” Henry stood up and gave her a big hug, ignoring her wince. “How’s my favorite little witch?”

“She’s the only witch you like, so that’s not a hard question,” Daphne said, in a quiet, monotone voice.

“That’s not true!” Henry insisted, before gesturing to Daphne. “I like you, too!”

A pause, and then, simultaneously:

“No, you don’t,” Astoria said, bluntly.

“No, you don’t,” Daphne said, bewildered.

“No, I don’t,” Henry said, despondently.

Astoria grinned and Daphne had a little smile on her face. Henry dramatically moped around a bit, and then snickered.

“What are _you_ doing here?” a boy suddenly asked. Astoria winced again in phantom pain. Henry stopped laughing, his face blanking, as he watched Astoria wince, before he donned a confused look and stared at the boy, who was almost glaring at Astoria. But, surprisingly, it was Daphne who spoke.

“She is my family. Is there a problem with that?” Daphne asked, in a soft but menacing manner. Henry had heard voices more menacing than that before, and so wasn’t entirely concerned, but Astoria was unused to the sheer _hatred_ in the subtleties of her voice.

The boy seemed completely oblivious as he sneered. “You’re consorting with a blood traitor and a Squib. Of _course_ I have a problem with that.”

“I’m _not_ a blood traitor,” Astoria shouted, causing more Slytherins to turn to face the conversation. “He’s my _brother!_ _And_ a professor!”

The boy sneered. “Filthy excuses for a filthy blood traitor like you.”

Astoria seethed angrily. Pretty much everyone at the Slytherin table, and a few Hufflepuffs, were staring at them now. Henry noted, mildly horrified, that there were a few who were looking at the boy with approval.

The boy ignored her and looked at Henry. “Well, Squib? Have anything to say about you sullying our noble house?”

“Why is the motif a snake?” Henry asked suddenly, and everyone in earshot blinked at the non-sequitir. “I mean, they’re not normally known for their cunning, they’re known for being lying and sneaky with absolutely no concern for who they kill, and also for being the servants of demonic entities, but not _cunning_. _Foxes_ are cunning, and foxes _eat_ snakes. So they automatically have a bad reputation, which isn’t good for popularity purposes.” He tilted his head in confusion, ignoring the stifled exclamations of shock around him. “Is it one of those size envy things?” Some of the Hufflepuffs a table over choked at that comment. “Because that would make _so much sense._ It would certainly explain the ambition aspect, anyway. And, I mean, ‘green with envy’. It makes sense.” He nodded firmly and shoveled food into his mouth.

Neither Daphne nor Astoria could respond to this, as Daphne’s face met the table multiple times, and Astoria was trying _really_ hard not to laugh.

“What is going on here?” Professor Snape asked, striding over to where Henry decided to sit. “Why are you not sitting with the faculty, Greengrass?”

Henry tried to answer while eating, but failed, so he shrugged instead. Snape sneered. “Do you think yourself better than us, Greengrass?”

Henry gulped his food down, and shrugged. “Yeah, a bit.” At Snape’s murderous look, he clarified, “Look, I’m a Squib teaching wizards how their own magic works. I’m also literally the youngest person on faculty, the only ‘magician’ as opposed to ‘wizard’, and I’m a certified genius and the only known liaison to the notably reclusive Japanese Ministry of Magic. But I’m also a _Squib_ and completely at the mercy of literally any wizard in this castle, once they know how I fight. So, yeah, excuse me if I think I’m a bit better than you; it’s a defense mechanism for me, at this point.”

The murderous look didn’t abate. Henry shrugged and went back to his meal, completely missing the fact that a lot of the other Slytherins were also outright glaring at him.

Astoria shifted her eyes to her friends, who noticeably were _not_ glaring, and gained a bit of confidence in their reassuring looks. Then she leaned towards her brother. “Um…you know everyone’s staring at you, right?”

Henry looked up from his food and looked around at the glares on the other Slytherins’ faces, then shrugged again. “So? I’m a Professor. I do what I want.”

“Doesn’t seem very Greengrass to just ignore everyone that hates you,” Astoria remarked, grinning.

Henry grinned back. “It actually is. We’re neutral, remember? It’s just not Slytherin, sure, but I never attended Hogwarts as a kid and thus don’t care.”

“Meanwhile, we, your _lovely_ and _beautiful_ sisters, have to suffer the agonies of listening to these guys whine about you,” Astoria blithely remarked. Henry winced.

“Ouch. Yeah, that’s not good. I’ll see you two around, then,” he replied, standing up. “Also: not lovely. More like horrible terrors that have the worst possible timing and are also really short.”

“Oi!” Astoria shouted in mock-outrage. “I’m not short! You’re just...freakishly tall!”

“I'm not that tall, you know,” Henry said with a laugh. “You're like half my height.”

“Wow,” Daphne snarked. “Your sense of perception is messed up. You should see a Healer about that.”

Henry laughed again, and waved at them as he headed towards the staff table. The glares shifted from him to the two girls, and Astoria felt her heart drop. _Oh, boy._


	5. It's A Hard Knock Life For Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I realize I'm very, very late, and Henry shouts at kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five months? _Right on time._
> 
> Incidentally, I looked back at the previous page, and forgot to mention that Daphne is actually only a few centimeters shorter than Henry himself. But she's _tall_ , especially for her age and gender. Astoria, meanwhile, is actually quite short, although judging from her siblings she won't stay that way. (She's also thirteen. Nowhere _near_ done with puberty.) Henry, of course, is actually pretty tall, but he's hung around taller people all his life.
> 
> Of course, as a reader, you're free to form your own opinions on the characters' physical traits. I don't really care, to be honest.
> 
> Characters from here on out will get mildly out of character. Sorry. I might be almost done with the story, though, so please bear with it.

Henry pulled up a seat at the staff table just as people started to crowd around his two sisters. He rolled his eyes but let them have their own business, choosing instead to pile on the food. Hogwarts may have had many negative things about it, but Henry really enjoyed the varieties of food choices, even if they were noticeably much thicker and greasier than the food choices in Japan.

 _Although,_ Henry mused, _at least here I know what I'm eating. Foods in Japan can get_ weird.

He idly noticed, out of the corner of his eyes, that Severus was still trying to kill him with his eyes. Henry ignored it and ate heartily.

Suddenly, Astoria screamed. Henry groaned and got up to see what the ruckus was about. He idly noticed Severus also rising up in faint irritation, and Henry felt mild gratification.

"What is going on here?" Severus drawled out in his laconic voice.

And despite the fact that he knew he should probably be paying attention, Henry sat back down and continued to eat his food, ignoring the goings-on of the Slytherin table.

At least, until Severus pulled him out of his musings. Henry sighed and stood up.

As he made his way to the Slytherin table, his blood froze in his veins as he saw what could only be his sister cradling his other sister's face.

"I, uh," Henry tried to rationalize, "I didn't expect Slytherins to be _quite_ this stupid, honestly. Delivering curses in the Great Hall? To other Slytherins? _Really?_ " He scrunched his nose, clearly ignoring his sisters' screams, in favor of facing Professor Snape. "You ever consider just throwing your entire House into, like, a giant hole or something?"

"Do you not care about your family at all?" Severus exclaimed, nearly wide-eyed. Then he narrowed his eyes, examining Henry's face. "I see. You really don't."

"I like Tori, but that's it," Henry confirmed. "Neither of them are particularly important, though." He idly noticed that his sisters stopped screaming in favor of listening to him. Scratching his chin, he muttered, "It should be a _really_ large hole. With _lava._ "

Severus's eyes narrowed even more, and he asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"Well," Henry said, entirely apathetic to the situation, "they're both lesser females of the Greengrass family, and no matter who they choose to marry, their name will inevitably be irrevocably changed away from the Greengrass name. As the heir, I honestly can't be bothered to care about what are essentially bargaining chips in this pathetic backwards society." Then he gestured in a circular motion. "The pit's rim should just be, like, on fire or something. And the lava in the middle, of course."

"H-how can you say that?" Daphne's friend (at least, as far as Henry could tell) asked, shocked and horrified at Henry's blasé approach to the situation. Henry stared at her apathetically, and she winced. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Daphne continuing to look despondent.

"Well," Henry drawled, "usually, when I say something, I say it with my mouth." He worked his jaw a few times, just to show that, yes, he uses his mouth to talk.

Then Snape's eyes widened in realization. "You said 'as the heir'." At Henry's nod of confirmation, he continued, "What's your opinion as their _brother?_ "

Henry merely hummed. "Hm?"

Before Severus could repeat his question, Henry turned to the two boys he saw curse his sisters, and placed a hand on their shoulders. Ignoring their flinch, he said, "Detention! With me!" He turned to Snape and asked, "When would be a good time for a detention?"

Ignoring the boys' outraged reactions, Snape silkily replied, "I'll handle their detentions, as their Head of House--"

Henry interrupted with a wagging finger. "Ah-ah-ah! Nope! _I'm_ gonna supervise their detentions."

Snape frowned. "I'm their Head--"

Henry interrupted again. "Yes, I know, Head of House of Slytherin," he replied, digging his ear with a finger, "but you see, _I don't care._ Besides, I have some untested arrays that need testing, and what better way than using these two as guinea pigs?" He finished his sentence happily, and clapped his hands over their shoulders.

The two boys gave an outraged shout, and Henry crouched down to them to be eye-level with them. "Did I stutter?" he asked in a low voice. At their head-shaking, he said, "No? Then there's no reason to be confused, is there?" The two boys shook their heads again, and Henry smiled unpleasantly. "Good."

Standing back up, Henry grinned. Clapping his hands together, he told Snape, "I've always wanted to see what happens when people get their skin turned inside out."

* * *

"That could have gone better," Henry said lightly, sitting in his chair in the Headmaster's office, surrounded by the other four Heads of House and a few other Professors Henry didn't immediately recognize. On the bright side, Umbridge wasn't here. Henry assumed she just didn't want to bother with the meeting, but she also wasn't at the dinner last night, so Henry was rather confused by her absence, before he abruptly stopped caring.

Severus snorted. "It could have done without the threats."

"Probably," Henry conceded with a grin. "Would've been less convincing, though."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "You are aware that this is a serious matter?"

"Of course!" Henry chirped brightly. "Throwing snakes into pits of lava is always a serious matter." Then he tilted his head. "Unless the lava turns into water." Then he tilted his head the other way. "Well, even then it's a serious matter."

He abruptly stood up and pointed accusingly at Dumbledore. "You're making this whole thing very confusing!"

Dumbledore grinned, despite the serious air of the conversation. "I try my best, my boy." Then he frowns. "You can't be threatening the whole of the student body. In fact, you can't be threatening _anybody;_ you're a teacher, and thus are supposed to set an example."

"I _did_ set an example." Henry rolled his eyes. "Just because it wasn't a _good_ example doesn't make it any less of an example."

"Regardless," and here Henry realized that, yes, Dumbledore knew exactly how his train of thought worked, "some of the students you've threatened are part of very politically powerful families."

Henry's mood darkened. "I'm completely aware, but for the safety and continued neutrality of the Greengrass name, I'm willing to take my chances." His eyes narrowed. "Nobody threatens my family."

Then, mood whiplash, as Henry jumped in his seat, smiling. "Great bargaining chips, my family! It really would suck if something happened to them."

Dumbledore stared at him.

The other professors also stared at him.

Snape put his head into his hands.

Henry scratched his head. "So. I have a class to prepare."

Dumbledore shook his head. "Not for much longer, when word gets out."

"All the more important I continue to do my job!" Henry smiled. "At least until I get fired by the board or something." He tilted his head. "Or that Umbridge lady? Can she fire me?"

Dumbledore nodded his head. "Yes, she can. But I suppose you're right. Very well, continue your classes. But if I hear word that you've threatened other students again," Dumbledore warned, "I'm not going to hold back in your punishments."

"Of course," Henry said with a wink. "No problem, really. I can still hand out detentions, right?"

"...so long as you're not supervising them, yes," Dumbledore conceded.

"Sweet." Henry grinned. "Hagrid's going to be _busy._ "

* * *

"Right, so apparently I'm not allowed to _knowingly_ kill anybody," Henry told his first class. "I can, however, give detentions. So that's nice."

The class of seventh-years turned to each other warily, as if to say, "what the hell is he talking about?" Henry ignored this.

"Right, so. Homework check. Everyone's turned it in?" At the hesitant nods, Henry grins. "Awesome. Let's talk about polar runes and their importance in stable conduits."

Without saying a word, the class opened their books. Henry approved. "Conduits, as you remember, are a part of the skeleton of shorthand runic arrays. They're also hopelessly complicated, even with the shortcuts I'm about to teach you." Henry grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote out diagrams detailing runic conduits.

"Professor," a girl piped up. Henry paused in his chalk drawing. "How would you be able to escape Dark magic with runes?"

"You're talking about the escaping arrays?" Henry turned to the girl. "You know that technically there's no such thing as Dark magic, right?"

"Huh?" the girl asked eloquently.

Henry continued drawing the conduits as he explained. "The only real feasible way you could escape the Dark Arts from your runic array is if you pile on intent-driven redirects." Adding finishing touches on the assignments on the board, he put the chalk down and turned fully to the class. "The Dark Arts, there's no real tangible difference between them and the standard Arts you learn in class, which is what Americans call 'Light magic', even though that's a thing that Americans think and thus is horribly wrong. The only difference that runes would be able to decipher is the fact that the Dark Arts traditionally lean more towards hatred-based intent, which is where the redirects come in.

"Unfortunately, there's no real 'full-stop' mechanism to stopping Dark magic, since Dark magic is still magic, but you can, at the very least, redirect magic with a certain intent. In runes, you'd have to layer on intent layers, one after the other, just to redirect the flow of Dark magic, and you'd have to be _very_ specific, otherwise the redirect will capture remnants of magic that you probably need to have the array operational." Henry smiled. "Okay?" At the girl's nod, he continued, "Okay, so, these over here are conduits."

"Wait," another girl chimed in from the back. Henry turned to her, and she asked, "So there's no such thing as a Dark magic detecting array?"

"Well..." Henry frowned in thought. "I mean, theoretically, you could craft a shorthand rune that emulated something like it, probably using some sort of Graffing's shortcuts, but then you'd have to worry about false positives..." Henry shook his head. "No, there's no easy array you could craft, and any theoretical array that neutralized false positives while reliably detecting the intent for Dark magic would be the size of Hogwarts itself, and that's even if you take into account the shorthand we're learning now. The conduits alone would take _years_ to craft. Although..." Henry tilted his head. "Hm. Something to think about.

"But, no, to answer your question, there's no real Dark magic detecting array. You could make one out of intent, but then it'd trigger whenever _anyone_ thought of something negative. Like, they don't like the size of your tie, or something." Henry grinned. "I've actually deliberately made one before. Did exactly that. Poor sucker didn't speak to me for _weeks._ "

The class tittered a bit, and Henry turned back to the board. "Anyway -- conduits. Important when making shorthand runes, because they lessen the effects of cross-contact magical contamination. Experts in non-magical society observe very similar effects in computer engineering, and they call it 'cross-talk'. I find the parallels apt enough to use that from now on.

"Cross-talk can be limited by adding conduits in mathematically-precise locations; for instance, when writing a multi-layer shorthand rune, you'd find it best to write them so that none of the node points actually connect, but the ley lines you craft can be contaminated by other ley lines in the same circuit. Conduits -- well, they don't outright prevent it, it's inevitable that it happens in such a precise science, but conduits lessen the effects of cross-talk by an average of 94%. In general runic arrays, this is acceptable, but when crafting miniature golems or something more advanced, it's very much _not._ This is where the concept of polar runes come in.

"Polar runes _intentionally contaminate ley lines._ They do this because they're specifically designed to be as interfering as possible. Polar runes are the absolute corruptions of runic arrays, and despite their discovery being a complete accident, as well as a major faux-pas in rune societies, they're actually surprisingly useful in shorthand arrays. This helps conduits out a lot because they draw the cross-talk from the ley lines and place them into an area around the polar runes and, importantly, away from the ley lines. Polar runes are crafted by pairing up certain pairs of runes, and intentionally drawing them in such a fashion that they...'corrupt' each other, for lack of a better word.

"Certain runes, like ehwaz and eihwaz, pair up well together, and when used improperly can become polar runes. There's been many major studies into how they work, and we can successfully guesstimate the optimal positions for both of them to be in to be like this." He drew the first rune, then drew the second rune upside down on the first rune. "This is the _only_ polar rune we'll be using in this year, although next year you're going to learn three more. This is because polar runes are difficult and confusing. Most importantly, used improperly, you'd ruin the entire array.

"The reason you're learning both conduits and polar runes is that they're both very, very tricky to learn together, but if we can manage it, we'll get an even better understanding of the relationship between ambient magic and the runes that empower it." Henry smiled. "Any questions?"

Instantly, a flurry of hands in the air. Henry chuckled.

* * *

"We don't want you here."

Henry paused in his routine cleaning of the blackboard and turned to the speaker, a Slytherin boy with black hair. Beside him were five other Slytherin children, two female and three male, trying to look tough and instead looking really silly.

"I guess I can see why." Henry tilted his head. "It's pretty dusty, isn't it? I'll go and move classrooms, just as soon as I can talk to the Headmaster."

"You don't get it!" another child angrily shouted. "Why are you even in Hogwarts? You don't even have magic! You're _utterly useless!_ "

Despite himself, Henry grinned.

"Well, it's not your choice, is it? Dumbledore hired me."

The black-haired boy, obviously the leader of the clique, scowled. "Father says Dumbledore is a loon, and the fact that he hired a worthless Squib proves that." The other heads nodded and Henry fought to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the synchronicity.

Instead, he shrugged, keeping his voice carefully neutral. "Okay. So what?" He let a bit of his amusement slip onto his face. "Is that supposed to _matter_ to me?"

" _Obviously!_ " that other boy shouted again. Before he could finish what was obviously going to be a tirade against Squibs, Henry laughed uproariously.

"I -- I can't -- oh my God this is -- this is just -- this is just silly!" Henry managed to get out between laughs. "Really? I'm getting threats by _teenagers_! Me! The current heir to the Greengrass line! The youngest Rune Master in several millenia! The only European magician in history! This is just _ridiculous!_ " Henry calmed down a bit, leaning over his desk. "How is _this_ my life?"

Catching his breath a bit, he turned to the brown-haired yelling boy. "You know, when I was your age, I'd already learned how to kill people with a flick of my wrist." He flicked his wrist, and the kids winced collectively. Henry grinned. "A year before that, I became the youngest rune specialist in the world. In _history._ So tell me, honestly, since it's obviously not because I'm not qualified. _I am._ Many times over. I've also proven to literally everyone important that I can manipulate magic enough to at least fake being a wizard, so even _that_ much isn't a problem. So tell me."

He glared at the kids, all amusement gone from his face. "Who's been lying to you?"

"Lying?" The black-haired boy looked at his companions, who looked just as confused as he was. "What--"

" _Lying._ Telling you I'm _useless._ Saying that I'm..." Henry scrunched his face up in disgust. " _worthless._ Who is it?" He leaned in towards the obviously terrified group of kids. "Because once I find this person spreading disinformation about me..." He grinned suddenly, a menacing, toothy grin that had two of the kids whimper. "Well. I'll let you figure it out."

"Once my father hears about this--" the boy started, and Henry got right in his face, glaring and looking far more menacing than any of the kids had a minute ago.

"One hundred points from Slytherin. _Get out of here._ " When the kids refused to move, he roared, "I SAID GO!" and the kids ran for their lives.

Henry headed back to his desk. He sat down, and almost immediately drooped in his chair, holding his head up with his hands. "How am I supposed to do this? The old man never mentioned what I was supposed to do. How is this my life...?"

If a student had walked past, they would have heard the unmistakable sound of sobbing. As it was, no student walked by, and Henry was grateful.


	6. Harry Potter and the Greengrass Heir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry gets a Filch hug, Umbridge gives Henry absolutely no grief, and Henry and Harry get into a blinking contest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note:** I'm surprised and astonished at the number of kudos I got for this story. I've even gotten a bookmark or two. Really, you people need better taste in stories. Kidding, kidding!
> 
> Incidentally, most of the FF.net reviews and such came in the middle of a game of Risk. I didn't win, but it was damn close. I'm absolutely terrible to play with, since the entirety of my strategy is based around attrition. (I roll better when defending.) I win maybe half of the time I play, and that's only because everyone's too bored to continue.

Henry awoke with a groan.

Blinking his eyes furiously, he stood up from his desk. Strewn haphazardly across the desk were papers, some of which were graded, and others not. With a sigh, he picked up more papers he hadn't graded yet.

 _Grading papers_ sucks, he mused as he marked another paper. _Easily the worst part of the job._

Henry was actually pretty disappointed at the latest batch of essays he'd assigned; the only one to come close to perfect marks was his sister, who he suspected might actually have an aptitude for Runes. _That's not_ that _unusual, though,_ Henry thought as he picked up yet another paper -- Hermione Granger's paper. Scrolling through it, he grimaced, marked it, and moved on to another paper.

Argus Filch knocked on the door. Henry could tell instantly because Filch's knocks were pretty heavy-handed and thus distinctive. (Also, he had scrying runes etched into the door.) "Come in," he called, and Filch entered his office, holding a book in his hand. "Good morning, Argus," Henry greeted.

Filch's eyes were teeming with anger, and Henry wondered what on earth could have happened. "You lied to me."

"Huh?" Henry asked eloquently.

"You _lied_ to me! You said I could do this magic stuff!" Filch shouted, throwing Henry's magician books back at him. Henry ducked and winced as it knocked against the wall.

"You _should_ be able to," Henry calmly stated back. "All signs point to it, after all. What's the problem?"

"The problem?" Filch spat. "The problem is that it _doesn't work._ Half the damn things are too complicated, and the one I picked out should have been easy! But look!" Filch sat down and etched a runic array on some spare paper lying around. Henry watched intently as he put the finishing touches, and then...nothing. "See? It doesn't work!"

Henry looked at the diagram, and then back at Filch with a blank look on his face. "That's not an easy array." Filch's eyebrows twitched, and Henry continued, "First off, this diagram was designed as a puzzle for the book's readers, so they could figure out how it worked from the previous chapter's information alone. The problem is...here," Henry motioned for Filch to give him the quill, and then drew out additional runes on the paper. "You need to add the ley lines connecting nodes A and B, isolating certain aspects with conduits to neutralize stray magic. My seventh-year class went over this a few weeks ago, actually. From here, you have to intersperse the correct runes _here_ and _here. Now_ try."

Filch looked at it, confused, and Henry palmed his face. "I...never gave you the actuation kit, did I?" Filch shrugged, wondering what an actuation kit was, and Henry sighed. "Sorry about that." He pulled open a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a box. "Here -- take this. It has instructions in the lid. Take a seat and work it out, okay? I have papers to grade." He also passed back the book, and Filch took both items with an unreadable expression on his face. Henry waved him off, and went back to marking papers.

A few minutes went by before Henry looked up at the glowing runic array on Filch's desk. He smiled. "I told you it'd wo--" he started, but was cut off by Filch's hug.

" _IT WORKS!_ " Filch all but shouted. Henry winced, at both the loudness of his voice and the proximity of his body. "Thank you thank you thank you _thank you!_ "

"Ah -- no prob -- get off me, please," Henry all but whined, and Filch recoiled, stopping the hug with much embarrassment.

"...We talk about this to nobody," Filch all but demanded.

"Agreed," Henry said. "Now then, I'm almost done with papers. Why don't you...go and do something else?"

"Right," Filch agreed. "Should get back to my job." And with that, he hobbled out of the room, box and book in hand.

"...Never took him for a _hugger,_ " Henry mumbled. "Hm. Ah well."

* * *

Henry walked to the Headmaster's office for a meeting, stacks of papers under his arm, when suddenly he heard a trio of voices around the corner. He contemplated hiding, but then remembered that, wait, he's a Professor, he's _allowed_ to be roaming the halls at this time. And, actually, curfew wasn't for another half an hour yet. Keeping that in mind, he strode purposefully towards the three voices.

"Oh. Hello, Ms. Granger," he greeted the bushy-haired girl. "I was going to talk to you after my class, but I suppose I can do it now."

Hermione looked to her two friends, before nodding.

"Look, your essay writing skills are _atrocious._ I'm going to get that out right now." He held up a hand to stall his student's complaints. "You write exactly what I want to see -- and _nothing more._ I _know_ you're smart. _You_ know you're smart. But your essay certainly didn't give me proof that you know what the half-over theorem was about; it proved that you read the book. I _don't_ want to see you writing paragraphs that could be ripped directly from a textbook, I want you to write it in a manner that proves to me that you know what you're talking about. Use _examples._

"And the fact that you wrote double of what I assigned also directly harmed your grade. The limit was there for a _reason_ , Ms. Granger -- it was to challenge students to write more to elaborate their answer, yes, but it was also meant to challenge students like you to limit their words to a certain extent. Also," here Henry scratched the back of his head, "it was to give me less work. But, I digress.

"Your essay was marked Acceptable, and I think that even that is too high, but you should be striving for an Outstanding. I've given you many ideas how to improve your grade." Henry clasped her shoulder, ignoring her teary eyes. "And you know you're better than that. Do better next assignment, Ms. Granger."

Hermione paused in her sniffling long enough to ask, timidly, "Can I re-do the essay, sir?"

Henry rubbed the back of his neck, but eventually said, "No, I don't accept re-dos of assignments. It's in the course syllabus -- I don't accept late or re-done work. But, ah, just...just do better next time. You're on your way to an Exceeds Expectations in my class."

He then turned to the black-haired boy. "Err...what's your name?"

"Harry, sir," he responded. "Harry Potter." He swept aside his hair, covering his forehead, and looked expectantly (and with a bit of dismay) towards Henry.

Now, had Henry been raised in Britain like he should have been, he would have heard all about the Boy-Who-Lived. But Henry was raised in isolated Japan, so the only reaction he gave was an honest nonchalance. "Okay. Mr. Potter, please ensure that Mr. Granger does the essays correctly. For example -- she should be writing the essays in a way that even you could understand it after reading it, since I know you're not in my class. And..." he turned to the other boy, a red-haired, gangly boy who made Henry do a double-take. "...do I know you?"

"Um...no?" The red-haired boy looked honestly taken aback.

"No, I'm pretty sure..." Henry shook his head. "Ah, well. Hi, I'm Henry Greengrass, and I'm the Applied Runes teacher." He smiled. "Just in case you two didn't know who I was, and were thinking 'who's this loony talking to Hermione like that?'" He smiled at their light laughter. "Well, nice meeting you two, but I've got to go to a meeting. Come by my office some time if you have any interest in runes." With that, he walked away, towards the Headmaster's office.

Before he was completely out of earshot, though, he heard the red-headed boy tell his friends, "He's a bit barmy, isn't he?"

* * *

"I hope I didn't miss anything," Henry said as he opened the door.

"Ah, Professor Greengrass, good to see you," Dumbledore greeted cheerily as Henry sat down on a provided seat. "A bit late, but aren't we all eventually?"

"True, that," Henry smiled. "I had to talk with Ms. Granger about her essay; I met her while I was coming over here and figured, hey, let's kill two birds with one stone," he shrugged.

At the rest of the faculty's bemused expressions, he deadpanned, "It's a Muggle phrase."

"That's, ah, interesting," Dolores Umbridge said, and Henry shrugged again.

"Apparently I'm 'a bit barmy', according to Ms. Granger's red-headed friend. Oh," Henry blinked in surprise. "I didn't ask for his name. I just realized that."

"You're talking about Mr. Weasley?" Professor McGonagall asked. Henry blinked.

"Weasley?" Henry tilted his head in thought. "Why is that familiar...? Bah," he waved it off after a moment's thought. "I'll remember some other time. Right now it's a meeting, right?"

"Indeed." Dumbledore calmly adjusted his half-moon spectacles. "Now, then, Professor Greengrass, since you're a bit late to the meeting and everyone else has already gone, let's talk about your class."

"What is there to say?" Henry asked rhetorically, then leaned back and made himself comfortable. "Other than the sub-par efforts of some un-notable students, I'm happy to report that nothing unusual has happened, except for, y'know." He waved a hand aimlessly. "The Slytherins consistently trying to undermine me, but they wouldn't be Slytherins if they didn't try. Honestly, I expect most of the seventh-year classes I teach to be well on their way to the Gold Standard of rune-crafting, which, for those of you who are unaware, is one of the higher internationally-recognized ratings in the runecraft system." All of the teachers unaware of the fact nodded their heads, including Albus himself but excluding Professor Babbling.

"Impressive," Dumbledore said, peering over his glasses. "Any...notable problems?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Henry said calmly. "I'm guessing my lessons really stick with the students. That, or they just aren't paying attention to someone like me."

"And what would that be?" Umbridge asked, in that sickening sweet voice of hers.

Henry blinked innocently. "A Squib, of course. Well," he said before anyone could say anything (but mostly to prevent Umbridge from saying anything). "I mean, I'm kind of _not_ a Squib, but by the British Ministry's rules I totally am, although any international government would recognize me as, at the very least, a magician." He waved his hand in a certain fashion, and the desk lit up with runic patterns. As he spoke, pictures appeared hovering over the patterns, like science-fiction holograms. "Right now, my students in third year have learned about the very basics of the runic alphabet that they must learn. Fourth year students have, at this point, been learning about most of the theorems. Fifth- and sixth-year students are on their way to actually constructing runic arrays, and seventh-year students are learning about shorthand arrays. The plan is for all of the years to learn, but not necessarily _utilize_ , shorthand arrays by the end of the term; seventh-years, of course, must be able to utilize them, as well as assorted information that is used to pass at least the Silver Standard." Henry waved his hand again, and the runic patterns disappeared. "That's the plan, anyway; who knows what could happen between now and the end of the term."

"I see," Dumbledore said, looking wholly interested, although the same could hardly be said for some of the other professors.

"But a Squib teaching runes," Umbridge protested. "Don't you think you should be suited for more... _appropriate_ tasks?"

"I'm a _magician,_ " Henry stressed. "I'm also the youngest Rune Master in _millenia,_ I'll have you know, and I've passed the Diamond Standard twice, the first time purely on _accident._ I've done work with Gringotts, for Merlin's sake. I'm fairly certain I'm well-equipped to be a professor, at the very least, Miss Umbridge." He smiled, masking his growing anger. "Unless you know someone with better credentials than me?" He tilted his head challengingly.

"I -- well --" Umbridge froze, realizing his words, and then meekly said, "Of course not, Professor Greengrass. I was simply curious."

Henry nodded curtly but didn't say anything more.

Dumbledore realized that was the end of his report and continued with the meeting. Henry sat back and listened.

* * *

Sitting in his desk in the office, Henry mused over the information he recieved in the meeting. Evidently, Umbridge and Dumbledore didn't like each other -- of course, the reason was obvious, with the Ministry's unfounded paranoia and Dumbledore's sheer eccentricity, but Henry felt like something wasn't adding up.

There was a knock on the door. Henry checked his runic arrays and found Umbridge to be the reason. "Come in," Henry said, but mentally he was berating himself for allowing that.

Umbridge entered the room, and sat down on the chair as if she owned the place. Henry sniffed the air. _Strong perfume._ "Professor Greengrass, I have been hearing reports of your giving detention to certain Slytherins?"

"Which ones?" Henry asked. "Because quite a few of them are fine students."

Umbridge gave a list, and Henry snorted. _Trust her to be sticking up for the rich ones._

"This is true," Henry allowed. "I usually assign them because of disruptions in my lectures."

"Why not send them to me?" Umbridge asked, voice falsely sweet. "I can ensure that they cause no disruptions."

Henry raised an eyebrow. "Not to offend you or anything, ma'am, but I think I can handle it myself."

"Of course, of course," Umbridge _simpered._ Henry had to fight to stop his face from showing his incredulity.

Instead, face entirely blank and voice carefully modulated, Henry asked, "Is there something you need, ma'am?"

"Well, if it's not too much trouble, could you check on some enchantments I have?" Henry gave up on fighting his face and instead openly gaped. "It was manufactured, of course."

"Ahh..." Henry chuckled. "Not to offend you or anything, but the way you _phrased_ that..."

"Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I knew what I was doing," Umbridge chuckled. "I'll be honest: I have no idea what I did wrong." She pulled out what looked like a broken clock, and Henry peered into it. "I was trying to clean it a few days ago, but it broke."

Henry turned the device around in his hands. He opened up his drawer, pulled out his omnioculars, and turned them on to examine the device. After about three minutes, he took off the omnioculars and put down the device. "I could, theoretically. You'd need to get me some supplies, but I can definitely repair this," Henry finally said.

"Oh, _thank you,_ " Umbridge said, obviously relieved. Before Henry could ask why, she continued, "It's actually a family heirloom, you see, but I noticed it getting dirty and so I tried to clean it. I don't know what happened, but it broke. I'm happy to see that it can be fixed."

Henry looked at the device again. "Yeah. No problem. I'll leave it here for now, then?"

"If you wouldn't mind," Umbridge said, rising from her chair. "Thank you so much, again."

"Not a problem," Henry waved. "Just, ah, hold on one second." He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down some parts he needed. "This is a list of parts I might need. I think you'll find them rather easily; they're pretty common, except the mainspring."

"Thank you again," Umbridge said, bowing lightly in what Henry assumed to be a curtsy. Henry nodded.

After she left, Henry blinked, then looked at the device on the desk. _Family heirloom, huh?_ He opened it up and saw the Selwyn coat of arms enscribed on the inside. _How interesting._

There was another knock on the door. Henry activated the runes again, and saw it was a student named Harry Potter.

"Come in," he said, and the door creaked open. Out stepped that same scrawny black-haired kid that Henry saw only an hour before, before the meeting. "Hello, Mr. Potter, did you need anything?"

"I, um, I was just wondering..." He looked at the device on Henry's desk. "What is that?"

"This?" Henry turned it around. "It's a clock; apparently it's one of Miss Umbridge's family heirlooms." He noticed Harry's distaste, since it showed clearly on his face, and chuckled. "I honestly didn't expect to be able to have a civil conversation with her, but there it was."

"But...why?" Harry asked, and Henry shrugged.

"It's just the way things work," he said. "Incidentally, the Greengrass and Selwyn families were united, once upon a time. They branched off after the head of the Selwyn family banished the soon-to-be-head of the Greengrass family from the Selwyn line for refusing to support the practice of Dark Arts on children." He smiled. "Just a bit of history for you. It was a _long_ time ago, back before even Hogwarts."

"What's the Selwyn family?" Harry blinked, nonplussed.

Henry smiled. "Dolores Umbridge is related to them."

"Ew," Harry made a face. "I didn't need to know that."

Henry grinned, then sobered. "What do you need, Mr. Potter?"

"I, um -- don't tell Ron, please, he'll never let me live it down -- but I'm interested in runes."

Henry blinked. "Why?"

"Ron would never stop mocking me for being a bookworm," Harry admitted. "He does it to Hermione, and I don't think I could handle it, honestly." Henry blinked.

"I'm sure he wouldn't _mean_ it if he was your friend, but, I mean...why are you interested in runes?"

"Because..." Harry thought for a minute. "I need to beat Voldemort." He blinked. "You...didn't flinch?"

"...should I?" Henry asked. "Is there a reason?"

"Well, most people flinch whenever someone says Voldemort's name. That's why everyone calls him You-Know-Who."

"Who?"

"You-Know-Who."

"Apparently I don't. Who is that?"

"...Voldemort."

"Okay." Henry leaned forward. "So...why do you need to beat this... Mr. Mort?"

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Is it Mr. Mort or Mr. de Mort? I was never good at French names, honestly," Henry rambled as Harry blinked. "Well, don't need to look so confused, his first name's Vol, right?"

Harry laughed, then, sudden and jubilant, and Henry blinked.

"I never thought of it like that! Vol de Mort, I think Dumbledore should hear that!"

Henry blinked again. "Right. Well." He leaned back in his chair. "You need to beat Mr. de Mort, and you're expecting...what? A shortcut? Runes are _hard,_ Mr. Potter. Your friend Ms. Granger...you think she's smart? Because she's _middling_ in my class. Barely above average student." At Harry's sudden paling, Henry explained. "Admittedly, she seems to understand the concepts in class, but when it comes down to writing it on paper, her examples never actually show that understanding. So I don't know if that's just how she is, or..." He shrugged. "But anyway. You'd have to sacrifice many precious hours to study runes, especially since you'd be behind by two years."

"I'm a fast learner, I learned the Patronus in six months" Harry said firmly, but Henry shook his head.

"I don't care. I don't even know what the Patronus _is._ You'd need to thoroughly understand two years of concepts before you can even get started on practicals, which is why the OWL exam doesn't focus on practical work so much as theory. If you can't handle that then I suggest you give up now, since, if you sign up for Applied Runes now I'd have to give you three textbooks and you'd have to read through them in..." He looked outside; it wasn't quite snowing yet. "Nine months or so. And they're not small textbooks, either. It's difficult work, and you'll be in an integrated course with your friend Ms. Granger and a whole host of people in your year from other houses."

Harry blinked, then nodded firmly. "I'll try my best."

Henry sighed. "You're really interested in runes, huh?" At his nod, he asked, "Why?"

Harry _blushed._ Henry raised an eyebrow, and he explained, "Well, I think you're really cool."

Henry blinked.

"I sincerely hope those aren't your only reasons. I spent most of my life studying runes so I could be as good as I am now."

"Yeah, but..." Harry waved his arms around. "You do so much magic! You're not even bothered by most of it like Filch, and your magic is wandless! It might just be the thing I need to beat Volde...Mr. de Mort!"

"I'm not bothered by it because I'm a Greengrass, Mr. Potter," Henry noted. "I'm the heir to one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families that all pureblooded families know. More than that, I lived in a rune society during all of my childhood, occasionally coming back for lessons from my father, so I'm barely familiar with wizarding Britain. I wasn't even aware that it was an issue that I'm wandless."

Harry took all this in with wide eyes. " _Oh. That's_ why you didn't know who Voldemort was."

Henry nodded. "I take it he's important, though."

"He's the whole reason I'm famous," Harry said, although Henry could see the frustration on his face. "He's a man who's pure evil, and he killed my parents when I was a baby. And I thought he died when he failed to kill me, because Dumbledore says the curse rebounded off of me, but he came back last year and..." He trailed off, choking up. "He killed Cedric," Harry finally muttered, willing his tears to not fall.

Henry's eyes softened in sympathy, and he got off his chair and went around his desk to hug the boy in front of him. "It's not your fault."

"If I didn't..." Harry was definitely about to cry. Henry activated his silencing runes with a wave of his hand, and then continued to hold Harry.

" _Listen to me._ It's _not_ your fault." Henry said, sternly. "I don't care who thinks that it is, as long as you know that it's not your fault. Because it _isn't._ "

"How do you _know?_ " Harry asked, almost desperately, and Henry could see the fear, desperation and self-loathing in his green eyes.

Henry had seen those eyes before, except in blue. He saw it frequently whenever he looked in the mirror.

"Because...I know what it's like," Henry finally said. "To have everyone against you for something out of your control. To have people dying for you to live. It really sucks. But, you know?" He looked at Harry, who was looking up at him with wide eyes. "They died for you to _live._ That means you're the hopes and dreams and love of more than one person." He smiled. "And it's good, because that way you're never truly alone. But it's bad, because it hurts, and it's hard to keep living sometimes. But that's what life's about, the bad and the good, you can't have one without the other." He looked away from Harry, and withdrew his arm. "It hurts to live, but you gotta get out of bed in the mornings, because those people who died for you wouldn't like it if you just gave up, y'know?" He walked silently back to his desk, watching Harry out of the corner of his eye.

As he sat down, he said, "So. I'll talk to McGonagall, you talk to your friend Hermione. Or my sister Daphne, if you can get in contact with her; I know that Gryffindors and Slytherins don't get along, but she's currently my best student in your year for reasons I don't even know." Henry shrugged. "Yeah. There's your options, Harry. Good luck, and welcome to Applied Runes."


	7. A Change in Canon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry reads the Quibbler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note:** Just a friendly reminder, for those who review my story and/or those who refuse to read my profile. I don't respond to guest reviews, no matter what they say. I do, however, read all of them, and if you're logged in then I'll try to message you a thank-you note as well as some hidden info regarding the story. Usually, it's just clarification, but I've dropped hints to other people about events that I've planned.
> 
> Incidentally, I won't be able to post any new chapters for my stories for the next week or so, not that I was actually planning on doing so in the first place. But I'm going on a trip! I haven't gone on one in years. It's a bit short as a result.
> 
> Also, hey look, nobody's crying in this chapter. Thumbs up for Zoloft.

"Well, this is new."

Henry's classroom was littered with vandalism, again, but this time the effects were more...interesting; mysterious substances were bubbling in the corners, his desk was transfigured into snakes, the desks in the classroom were walking around on spider legs, and the chalkboard had a picture of a cow.

Henry clapped his hands together, and dispensed of the vandalism. He was ever so grateful again that he wrote the runes into every single part of the classroom before classes started for the year. He noticed that the cow disappeared, with the vandalism, so Henry picked up chalk and drew it again.

He liked the cow. It was adorable.

Since he had an hour before his classes actually started, Henry decided to eat breakfast in his classroom again, like he had for the last couple of weeks, so he could eat in relative quiet while also hopefully getting work done. So he did, proceeding to nibble at a piece of strawberry toast he convinced the house-elves to make. He had absolutely no idea how they got the toast to taste like strawberries, and honestly didn't really want to find out.

Pulling out a copy of the Daily Prophet, he noticed the headlines on the front page, detailing something about a High Inquisitor. Further perusal indicated that the Ministry granted Dolores Umbridge near-unlimited power in regards to Hogwarts.

"Hm," he said, turning to the next page. People were still calling for his head; that was nothing new. What _was_ new was the high amount of people praising his presence in Hogwarts. "Interesting." Including Umbridge herself? Henry blinked, then turned to the still-broken clock on his desk. _Is it really worth that much?_

Shaking his head, he continued to review the Prophet. When he finished (there wasn't much of importance or relevance to Henry, except the price of rubies having gone up), he pulled out a copy of the Quibbler, and turned to the crosswords section.

"Six-letter word for 'brainsucker that preys on emotion'..." Henry nibbled the tip of his pen in thought. "'Nargle'."

Henry didn't often read the Quibbler, but he had a subscription to it because of how much fun the crosswords turned out to be when he first bought one in the first month of classes. He preferred it to the Daily Prophet's pitiful crossword. And the outlandish stories were actually entertaining to read without being outright libel like the Prophet, so Henry continued the subscription.

"Eight-letter word for 'six-legged beast commonly found with unusual horn structure'..." Henry snorted. "This one's easier than usual. 'Snorkack.'"

"Um -- Professor Greengrass?" a voice piped up and Henry yelped, scattering everything to the ground and falling off his chair.

"Oh my god hi," Henry managed to get out, climbing back to his chair. "Yes? What is it..." he squinted in disbelief. "Mr. Potter? Is something the matter?"

"Ah, well, no," Harry admitted. "I just -- is it true that you're in league with Umbridge?"

"...I don't know what that would imply." Henry tilted his head. "What does that mean?"

"I don't really know, I just thought," he trailed off, absentmindedly rubbing his hand. Henry stared at the movement, causing Harry to hide it.

"Mr. Potter, give me your hand," Henry finally said. Harry shook his head.

"It's fine, really--"

" _Mr. Potter,_ " Henry said with authority. " _Give me your hand._ "

Harry shyly, meekly, gave him his hand. Henry looked at it, unwrapping the bandage.

"'I must not tell lies'? Where did you get this?"

Harry glared at Henry, then took his hand back forcefully. "Umbridge."

Henry looked at his ceiling for a moment. Then he looked back at Harry. "Come here, Mr. Potter." He led Harry to his desk, where he opened up a drawer and pulled out a vial. The stopper on the vial came with a built-in brush. "Hold still; this might sting a bit."

'Sting' was an understatement, Henry knew, because Harry was hissing loudly as the markings literally burned away. After he cleaned off the last of the markings, he tightened the stopper and put the vial away. Then, Henry merely sat in silence, watching Harry's reactions; Harry, meanwhile, was doing the exact same thing, rubbing his newly-healed hand, although with far less success thanks to Henry's utterly blank face.

"Come back here the next time you have to write lines on your hands with a blood quill," Henry finally said. Harry nodded tightly. "Is there anything else?"

"Will this be...will you tell anyone?"

"It's entirely confidential, so no. Contrary to popular belief, or at least _hers,_ Dolores doesn't need to know _everything._ " Henry shrugged. "Just the things that affect her, and if I happen to help a promising student with a gift from my fiancée, then it's none of her business."

Harry blinked. "You have a fiancée?"

"Oi," Henry whapped the top of Harry's head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Harry laughed. Henry noticed the almost palpable sense of relief emanating from Harry's body. "I didn't mean it like that, honest!"

" _Sure_ you didn't," Henry said, rolling his eyes and grinning. "So, anyway," he changed the subject. "How's the studying coming along?"

"I've already finished with the third-year book," Harry said, and Henry blinked.

"In the course of six weeks?" Harry nodded. "Impressive," Henry whistled. "Hermione helped a lot, then?"

"And Daphne," Harry added. "She's surprisingly helpful."

Henry blinked. _That's new._ "Is she now? I don't suppose you'd know if either of them would agree to extra credit for their work, then?"

" _Nobody_ would turn down extra credit," Harry said, and Henry chuckled.

"True, true. Alright, thanks for coming by, Mr. Potter. Enjoy your day," he said, waving Harry off.

"Thanks, Professor," Harry replied, before leaving.

Henry picked up his copy of the Quibbler before leaning back in his chair. "Seven-letter word for 'moste evil of evils'..." Henry tilted his head. "Wow, I actually have no idea."

* * *

"Alright, class, now that we've gone over the rule of threes and fives, let's go over the slightly harder one: the rule of sevens. Take out your textbooks and try the first diagram on page 131," Henry told his fifth-year class.

"Now, as with the rules of threes and fives, the rule of sevens is equally important in stable, and more importantly _effective_ and _usable,_ applied runes. The only difference is that, like the rule of fives was to the rule of threes, the concept behind it is also exponentially more difficult, so don't be surprised if you don't get it right the first few times." The class groaned, and Henry grinned. "Hey, it took me about a month to even fathom the rule of sevens, although I had to be more detailed than this, and didn't have the luxury of a book telling me how it works. I--yes, Professor Umbridge?"

Umbridge strode into the class like she owned the place -- although, according to the Daily Prophet, she probably did. "Mr. Greengrass, I've recieved word that you've directly interfered with another student's detention?"

Henry blinked. "I did? When was this?"

"Earlier this morning," Umbridge clarified with a sniff. Henry tilted his head.

"I...don't recall doing anything of the sort."

"Really?" Umbridge inquired. "Because I've had reports that a certain Harry Potter was in this classroom," and here everybody turned to see Harry Potter steadfastly ignoring the proceedings, "and you two were laughing and enjoying yourselves, when he should have been down in the Great Hall, eating."

"Wow, he forsaked his breakfast to see me," Henry snarked to himself. "I feel honored." He said, in a louder voice, "I was only helping out a promising student, nothing more."

"And this 'promising student' is Harry Potter? The same Mr. Potter who constantly seeks attention by lying about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Umbridge said, before scoffing. "Forgive me, but I don't see him doing anything of the sort. In fact, I was wholly unaware of Mr. Potter's schedule change."

"I talked to Deputy Headmistress McGonagall about it. She was more than enthusiastic to see Mr. Potter being transferred to my class over Divination." Henry snorted. "Admittedly, that's not very high praise at all. But the fact's there."

Umbridge frowned. "I see. Well, then, just be warned that Mr. Potter is an immature attention-seeking brat who wants to spread his filthy lies around about You-Know-Who." Harry muttered something like, 'here it goes,' and started to snicker, but before Umbridge could retaliate, Henry spoke up.

"Who?"

"Mr. Potter."

"No, I mean," Henry gestured to nothing. "You said I know who, but I really don't."

"You-Know-Who."

"No, I'm afraid I don't. Who is that?"

"The Dark Lord? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"

"That's an unfortunate name for a Dark Lord," Henry acquiesced. "But the fact remains that I don't know who."

"Never you mind!" Umbridge strode out of the classroom, flustered for some reason. Henry was confused about that, before shrugging it off and turning back to the class.

"She was talking about Mr. de Mort," Harry volunteered, and Henry's face lit up in realization.

"Oh! Well, why didn't she just say so?" Henry scoffed. "I lived in Japan, I don't know who I'm supposed to know. Hell, I didn't even know there _was_ a Dark Lord. Wait, Vol's a Dark Lord?" he asked to Harry, who nodded with a smile. "'Vol' is still one of the weirder first names I've ever come across, but at least I can pronounce it. Not like his last name, 'de Mort'. That's far too complicated." And the class broke out in laughter, finally realizing who he was talking about. Even some of the Slytherins chuckled when they got it.

"That's enough getting sidetracked, though." Henry said, though he was still smiling. "Let's get back to talking about the rule of sevens."

* * *

Henry punched the wall in front of him. This was the seventh time in his life that a wall had outsmarted him, and Henry wasn't going to give this particular wall the pleasure of defeating him. Thankfully, the only other person in the room was family, and there was no class at the time.

"At first this was funny," his blonde sister stated in her eerie monotone. "Then it got kind of weird, and now it's just sad." Daphne turned to look at Henry. "So what do we do?"

Henry groaned. "First, we find enough C4 to blow the darn thing down." At Daphne's inquisitive look, Henry explained, "It's a Muggle explosive. Pretty hard to set off accidentally. It's kind of like a clay, except it explodes." Daphne nodded.

"Would conjuring it be acceptable?" Daphne asked. Henry shook his head.

"You don't know the chemical properties of C4, nor do you know anything about it other than what I told you," Henry noted. "So it wouldn't work." Daphne merely tilted her head down.

"I apologize for having you work at this," Daphne said quietly. "It wasn't my intention to make it so difficult."

" _This time,_ anyway," Henry snarked with malice, before quickly sobering at Daphne's sudden depression. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Just a bit stressed, you understand."

Daphne recovered a bit and nodded, but said nothing more. Henry clapped his hands again and punched the wall, to no avail. "Let's, ah, let's try..." He clapped his hands again and punched the wall again; the wall cracked a bit, to Henry's satisfaction, but the wall didn't collapse. "Why did you have to make your project on _runic demolition?_ "

"I've always been fascinated by demolition," Daphne admitted, and Henry did a double-take.

"My sweet, innocent, _dainty_ sister, fascinated by _things blowing up?_ " Henry grinned. "You and I have a lot in common, after all."

Daphne let a rare smile grace her face, before it was quickly quashed. Henry noticed, and his grin grew wider. "Did I ever tell you about the time I blew down cast-iron doors? It was really tricky, since, as you know, iron doesn't conduct ley lines too well, but I noticed that the hinges were made up of something totally different; not quite iron, but sturdy all the same. It turned out to be a sort of nickel that they also used to fix small dents in the door..."

* * *

"I don't get it," Henry muttered, staring at the newspaper. "Why in the world would they be so _blatant_ about this...?"

In one of his rare moments, Henry decided to eat his dinner in the Great Hall, instead of holing up in his office. As he pulled out his copy of the Daily Prophet, he idly noticed some of the students pointing out his presence, but gave it no further thought.

He was pretty peeved at the writing that the Daily Prophet had on display; he actually missed that writer, Rita Skeeter. She wasn't very good at writing the truth, but reading between the lines, one could pretty easily discern the truth from the glaring omissions. Then again, Henry mused, his father Cyrus wasn't exactly amused at her antics, either, and Henry had to agree -- they straddled the line between harmless entertainment and outright slander frequently often.

But today's top article was very strange, even for the Daily Prophet -- calling for an end to the muggleborn agenda was traditionalist rag, unusual for the newspaper. Henry made a mental note to check for anything worth notice in the Prophet's staff.

Turning the page, he noted nothing of worth happening, except maybe the price of imported ink from Japan, so he put the Prophet away. And then he pulled out a copy of the Quibbler.

Immediately, he heard some people muttering even louder. Some people stopped muttering outright and merely pointed at him. But he didn't expect a Ravenclaw to come up to the staff table because of it.

"Thank you for reading the Quibbler," the dreamy-eyed blonde Ravenclaw chimed happily. Henry blinked. "Do you have any suggestions on how to make it better? My father's the chief editor, you know."

Henry blinked again. "I use it for the crossword," he finally said after a moment's break. "Sometimes I read the articles, but they're usually not very interesting, although I liked the article about the blibbering humdingers. But, ah, I focus on the crossword."

The blonde girl hummed, "I see," and then went and sat back down. Henry was entirely nonplussed by this.

"...Maybe I was too hasty in sitting down here."


	8. Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry's actions actually give him problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I know a lot of politicians and lawyers, I am neither a politician nor a lawyer. I respect the people who have to put up with other people's political...word I can't say in this story, but I have absolutely no idea if what I wrote in this chapter is even close to being accurate. Or it it even makes sense.
> 
> Admittedly, I'm VentingNonsense. That means I get to vent nonsense, and if you don't expect it, then that's your own fault for not reading my username. But I still apologize.
> 
> I just wanted to have Henry get in trouble for flaunting his absurdity, because, well, a lot of fanfiction authors let their main characters get away with murder (usually metaphorically, but sometimes literally) without a hint of reproach from other, more powerful sources. When I tried to be about half as absurd as Henry is in a real-world situation, I got fired. (I think. I never did talk to my employer since then...)
> 
> My train of thought went all over the place in this chapter. To be fair, though, it's done that on every chapter, so if you'd gotten this far without noticing then it probably won't bother you now. I'd apologize but I already don't remember what I'd apologize for. Something about cheese?
> 
> (And yes, the chapter title is correct -- we're nearing the end...of what I have planned for the arc; it'll probably end at chapter 12. And then there'll be a short companion piece, and then we'll be back.)

"I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me, here," Henry admitted. "Is there a problem with the way I teach? Because from what I've seen so far, I'm actually a pretty good teacher, judging from the, y'know." Henry waved his arm around haphazardly. "The grades my students have been getting, in both their practice NEWTs and OWLs."

"How dare you patronize me," Lucius Malfoy seethed angrily. Henry blinked at the complete non-sequitir.

"And here we go with the threats," Henry continued, entirely nonchalant and waving a glass of water around. "Next you're going to say something about 'when the someone hears about this', and then go straight to trying to curse me behind my back and failing miserably like the little cretin you are. This is boring," Henry moaned loudly. "Can we go and do something else? Like, say, _not_ talk about my influence in Hogwarts? Because I kind of like that idea."

"Seconded," Henry's father spoke up before Lucius could speak. "And, Mr. Malfoy, I'd certainly appreciate it if you refrained from interrogating my son and heir. It would make proceedings go more smoothly."

"Are you trying to displace my power?" Lucius hissed. "You, of a house less noble than my own?"

"Nothing of the sort," Cyrus interjected smoothly. "Merely pointing out that it's a waste of time to attempt something so drastic for such a trivial reason. Surely you of all people can see reason, Mr. Malfoy?"

"He _threatened_ my _son,_ " Lucius all but shouted.

"Uh, no, I don't recall ever doing so." Henry put a finger in his ear. "Also: _ow._ You're quite loud."

"Threatening to turn my son inside out," Lucius started, and Henry gasped.

"Oh, that was your son?" Henry pretended to think for a moment. "Hm, nope, doesn't look like you. Are you _sure_ he's your son?"

"Are you sure you're your father's son?" Lucius sneered, instead.

"I am, whenever he wants me to be," Henry casually replied. "Which isn't really that often, come to think of it."

"Then why are you black-haired?" another person in the room asked, curiously. "Your father has brown hair, and your mother's a blond; where did the black hair come from?"

"Oh, that?" Henry dismissively waved his hand. "Psh, it's just hair dye. It's easier to live in Japan when you don't look completely outlandish, and not many natives there have blond hair."

The lady who asked the question nodded, and Henry stretched his limbs. _This board meeting is getting exhausting,_ he thought, as he leaned back in his seat.

"And there! See?" Lucius suddenly shouted. "He shows no respect to us!"

"Respect is earned, not given," Henry drawled out condescendingly. "And considering the method in how you got this post, I certainly don't respect your opinions in my teaching of children."

"How _dare_ you," Lucius started again.

Looking over the blond, Henry shifted his head to look at the other occupants in the room. "See, this guy has been talking for the past twenty minutes. Do _any of you_ have opinions that differ from his? Because I don't really want to embarrass the _whole_ room when I take apart his argument piece by piece."

"Yes," another stern lady interjected, this one wearing a vulture hat. Henry secretly wanted one for himself. "I certainly do. However, as much I want to defend you from Mr. Malfoy's wrath, I see reason in his argument --"

" _How?_ " Henry gaped in disbelief.

"Well, your age is definitely a concern," she started. "Most importantly, though, is your status as a Squib in the world. You are aware of the traditional response to Squibs inheriting posts?"

"Of course I do," Henry muttered angrily. "But that won't happen."

The vulture on the lady's head nodded its own head in time with the lady's own. Henry _really_ wanted to get one for himself. "I understand that. But please consider an alternate route, just in case this doesn't work out; it's not you, it's the political landscape in the world."

"I know that," Henry snarked. "I'm not an idiot, I'm a Squib."

"And your lack of respect --"

"I can be damn respectful if I wanted to," Henry cut her off. "I just see no reason to in front of a crowd that constantly seeks to undermine me, much less in a private area, while we're talking about something that _shouldn't even be relevant to me._ "

"Then how will you handle politics?" the stern lady spoke sternly, vulture hat staring at him. "How can you handle something like politics when you can't even _pretend_ to be respectful? Take your father, for example. I babysat him, growing up," she continued in a softer tone, noting Henry's surprised face. "He was a brilliant but very rambunctious child. But even he knew when to be respectful to others; you're simply shunning the ideals of our generation for your own selfish gain."

"I shun your ideals not because I'm selfish, but because I disagree with them--" Henry started, surprisingly quietly, but was cut off.

"That shouldn't matter," his father said. "Yes, you disagree with them, but in this, you are a minority. You cannot hope to achieve political gain by acting as a minority; you will need to gain more of a solid base before attempting anything so drastic. _I taught you that,_ and you are ignoring it for whatever pathetic reason you fancy. We, the Board, primarily seek to ensure the ideals of Hogwarts are upheld, and this includes in respect to actions by our faculty. We expect the faculty here to respect our job. _You have failed to show even this simple courtesy._ Your other actions would have been more excusable had you shown even the tiniest smidgeon of courtesy, but your constant disrespect is grating on the Board's collective nerves. It is entirely within reason for us to expel you; the only reason we are even considering keeping you on the staff is because I know for a fact that you _can_ show respect." His father's steely grey eyes met Henry's wide blue ones. "And by acting like a petulant child, you are ruining everything I have done for you to get this far in this world."

"I...I..." Henry stalled, dumbfounded, mind reeling in shock, before he suddenly slumped in his seat. "I...I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't even realize it was that bad."

"It was," the vulture hat lady sniffed. "But we expect better from you, starting now." She waved her wand, and a spell lifted that Henry didn't even know was there. From the looks of the other people in the room, they hadn't heard anything, so he bowed deeply and respectfully.

"I apologize, respected Board of Governors. My actions before now have shown my skills in a thoroughly negative view. I will ensure that it does not happen again."

Henry's father nodded. "I expect nothing less of my heir."

And the meeting went on, Henry keeping his mouth shut and merely observing, as the vulture hat lady used years of experience and a metaphorically firm hand to secure what she felt was best for Hogwarts, and as his own father used silvery words to achieve much of the same. Henry noticed that both of them were also vouching for him to stay in Hogwarts, which he felt grateful for. In the end, Henry was allowed to stay on as a teacher in Hogwarts, with restrictions.

"I can't supervise detentions," Henry said once the meeting was over and most of the Board was dismissed. "I can only meet with students if they personally request it, with it being witnessed by at least one other faculty member, _definitely_ no threats to the students, and I have to keep my class up with the latest benchmarks in rune studies. All in all, though, I think I've just gotten off _light._ I've said this before, Father, but you're amazing at this. I'm not entirely sure how I could keep up."

"Practice," his father said, with a hint of smug superiority in his voice. "Practice, confidence, and emotional control, in that order. The world of politics is tough, Henry, but as a Greengrass I expect you to be the best of the best."

Henry bowed with a flourish of his hand. "I'll aim to please in the future, Father."

Cyrus nodded. "See that you do." With that, he picked up the Floo and disappeared behind green flames. Henry blew out a puff of air.

"That's really tough," Henry groaned. "Wait, he just called me Henry." He blinked twice. "Huh."

He felt a sharp tap on the shoulder and turned around to see the vulture hat lady stare at him with a stern visage. Henry blinked again. She smiled. "You are very much his son."

"I, uh, thank you...?" Henry felt confused, which didn't abate when the vulture hat lady laughed.

As she, too, departed via Floo, Henry felt older than he'd ever felt before in his life.

* * *

Henry sat in the front of his class, grading paperwork, when he heard a knock on the door. "Come in," Henry called, then hesitated. "Unless you're a student, then bring a teacher in as well." All of the students had learned about Henry's situation during dinner, though, so Henry wasn't particularly concerned about that. Still, it couldn't hurt to be thorough.

Dolores Umbridge walked in instead. Henry smiled politely. "Hello, Dolores. Is there something you needed?"

"My heirloom?" Umbridge asked curtly.

Henry nodded, and then opened up his desk. "It was pretty complicated, but I think I got the gist of it. Everything's all fixed in there. Thank you so much for going out of your way to get the parts, though; that was much more helpful than me having to get them." It wasn't out of the way for her, and Henry knew it, but after that meeting he supposed it also couldn't hurt to be polite.

Umbridge raised her eyebrows and stuttered, "Ah, yes, well..." Then she cleared her throat. "Thank _you,_ Professor, for fixing my priceless heirloom. If there's anything I can do..."

Henry was about to wave her off, but then thought for a second. "What do you know about my, ah, _restrictions?_ "

Umbridge blinked. "I know that you can't do a lot of stuff you used to do before, like supervise detentions and such, and then the benchmark exams. Was there more to it?"

Henry hesitated, then decided to chance it; Umbridge might have been a jerk, but he seemed to be on her good side. "I didn't tell the Board this, but I'm actually supervising a club, see, and I wanted to continue doing it. But with these restrictions..."

Umbridge frowned. "This isn't going against Ministry policy, is it?"

Henry waved his hands. "No, no, of course not. It's a simple, ah," he looked around subtly. "a simple rune demonstration club. It's for my more advanced students in my class, and students who weren't willing to take Runes but still have an interest." He was lying, of course; he didn't have a rune demonstration club, but for a bit more freedom he was willing to make one.

He might have gotten off light, but any sort of restriction was still stifling, and contrary to Henry's rune-development mindset.

Umbridge raised an eyebrow. "What years?"

"Any and all," Henry admitted. "Whoever's interested, really. Right now there's..." he did the math in his head, to see who would be interested in joining the club. "About four students, but I'm looking to admit more. After all, the change in course was a bit more drastic than anyone could have foreseen, and Ancient and Applied Runes are different, so, ah..."

Umbridge nodded in sympathy. "I understand, Professor. Rest assured that I will verify this club with the Ministry and Hogwarts' Board of Governors. If I could have a club list...?"

Henry coughed suddenly. "Ah -- yes, a club listing..." He looked around, then decided to keep lying. "Ah, see, I don't want to force my club members into anything, so I'll have to actually verify with the students. And, well, I just wanted to see if you'd be able to assist in this endeavor. I certainly didn't expect to have the list on me, so..."

Umbridge's frown returned. "...so you don't have it on you, and you want to verify with your students. Very well, then." Umbridge nodded and turned away. "It's the least I could do for you having fixed a priceless artifact."

Once Umbridge left, Henry slumped in his seat with a sigh. "Oh my _god_ that was tough."

He turned back to his papers and skimmed through Hermione's latest report, then did a double-take and re-read the whole report. Henry had never even considered the possibilities of doing that thing Hermione had unknowingly alluded to in her paper, so he jotted it down on a spare paper and marked her paper with an "O -- see me after class".

Putting it to the side, he grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose, before he noticed his sister Daphne standing in front of his desk, uncomfortable.

"Oh." Henry blinked and put his hand down. "When did you get here? And, uh," he then noticed Professor Snape standing by his doorway. "Oh, good, you brought faculty."

"I had to," Daphne stated quietly. "Your restrictions..."

"Ah, Professor Snape, if you would be so kind as to leave...?" Henry asked, waving at her. "She's my sister, I'm not going to hurt her, so my restriction doesn't really apply, right...?"

"...I remember your stunt in the Great Hall the other day. You don't like her, regardless of familial status." Snape kept a cool tongue and an arched eyebrow as he picked apart Henry's argument. "And yes, your restriction still applies to all students you have, including your siblings, for the duration of the term."

"Damn it," Henry cursed under his breath. "Foiled again by half-formed plans."

"It's okay, brother," Daphne said, so quietly Henry had to strain his ears to pick it up. "Professor Snape is an excellent Head of House. If it's something like what I think it is, he'll keep it secret."

Henry glanced to Severus, who gave a subtle nod, and then Henry relaxed a bit, slumping over his desk and placing his hands together. "So, Daph," he asked over steepled fingers. "How would you like to join a club on rune demonstration?"


	9. Prometheus Unbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry breathes a lot and then stares at pears. Then he teaches some ancient secrets about runes.

Henry looked over his new club, a rune-demonstration club, and breathed in the sweet smell of success. Professor Umbridge had been surprisingly kind regarding the club, almost as if she actually cared about the wizards and witches in the school.

But that would be silly, Henry mused. Umbridge was known to be...less than reputable when it came to issues regarding children. Why the Minister decided to appoint her, Henry would never know, but it was obvious to anyone reading her public profile that she was less than thrilled about the prospect of dealing with children.

He exhaled slowly. Well, it wasn't his problem after all. Umbridge had a motive behind her kindness, no matter what she did, and right now Henry was simply thankful that she allowed this club to exist. Even if it started off as a lie.

After explaining to Daphne what the club was about, Daphne first agreed fervently, then calmed down and asked about a catch to his offer. Henry chuckled at her reaction to his answer.

* * *

"What." Daphne's voice was flat, and carrying no emotion besides that of _utter disdain._ Henry had to fight to control his mirth, lest his own sister be furious with him.

"I said," Henry started, then took a breath. "You will be the first of, hopefully many, members, and I would appreciate it if you could find other people who were interested."

"But..." Daphne's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You...I thought there already was a club?"

"Not yet," Henry corrected with a grin. "But, if we can manage to get five students at the minimum, there _will_ be."

"...are you actually willing to head a club like this?" Daphne asked, monotonous as always.

"Yes," Henry admitted honestly. "Yes I am." Daphne blinked in surprise, perhaps not expecting Henry's fervent declaration, and then a small smile graced her face.

"Then...I might know some people."

* * *

And with her help, the club gained all of twelve total members. Tracey Davis, Daphne herself, and their collective sister, Astoria, were the Slytherin group of the rune club; aside from that, there were two Ravenclaw girls, the strange blonde one whose dad owns the Quibbler and another one who Henry didn't honestly recognize off the top of his head. Also in the club were three Hufflepuffs: Susan Bones, who Henry recognized from the papers, what with her being the Director of Magical Law Enforcement's niece, Hannah Abbott from his fifth-year class, and a boy Henry didn't recognize.

And then there were the Gryffindors. As he expected, Hermione Granger was also in this club, scribbling furiously on a notepad of some sort. Next to her was Harry Potter, who looked intently at Henry as if privately examining him, two twin red-headed boys who looked uncharacteristically serious (Henry guessed, from the lines on their faces), and a boy he knew could only be Neville Longbottom.

* * *

"Neville Longbottom is on this list?" Umbridge's eyebrows went up as she stared at this list. "I understand that you like the Potter brat, for whatever reason, but the Longbottom boy as well?"

"I _do_ have an ulterior motive," Henry confessed. "I'd like to mentor him, as he _is_ the next heir to the Longbottom family. It would be beneficial to both our families if there were an alliance between us. But, yes, I do honestly believe that he would get better in my club."

Umbridge looked a bit furious, but took a deep breath. Exhaling, she acquiesced. "Very well. I'll allow this, I suppose, if you can get the Longbottom's grades up in his classes."

Henry laughed. "Well, I'll certainly try my best."

* * *

Filch was the strangest acquisition to his club, although he didn't quite count towards the club registry, but Henry supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. Argus had apparently spent most of whatever free time he could scrounge up learning about runes, and he was actually on par with some of the sixth-year students at this point. Which, considering he went from 'little to no understanding of magic at all' to 'six years of Hogwarts magical understanding' in the span of six months, was pretty much the most amazing thing Henry had seen in the runic field.

He could already feel the excitement of helping potentially the strongest magician in the world. If he could get his fiancée to sponsor the man...

Well. He'd see her in a few weeks.

A small smile graced his face at the thought of meeting his lover, but then he sobered a bit and focused his eyes on the rest of the club.

"Now, then, welcome to the first-ever Rune Demonstration Club Meeting, and yes, that's all in capitals. So, first thing I want us to do is pick out roles for each of us to play."

The bushy-haired girl piped up. "Um, what do you mean by that?"

Henry smiled. It only took six months, but she seemed to be over her original hesitation of raising her hand before speaking in a classroom. "Well, things like a club president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer. Stuff like that. Admittedly," he confessed when everybody still looked confused, "I'm basing this off of Japanese clubs, as that's the only reference I have right now." He gestured. "But we have eleven members, and Mr. Filch over there, so I think we'd need some sort of structure before we began."

Daphne nodded, and Tracey spoke up. "Why not have Daphne be club president?"

"Why?" Hermione said to Tracey, a bit irritated.

Tracey shot a look at Hermione. "Because she's the one that got everyone in the club, _duh._ Would you have joined if Daphne didn't invite you?"

"Yes," both Hermione and Henry said at the same time. They looked at each other, Hermione embarrassed and Henry thoroughly amused.

"I'll second that," Harry said from his spot on the floor. Henry had gotten them all to sit on the floor in a circle so that he could figure something out, and after he did, he decided they should just stay there. Harry and Neville were holding pears, which was also part of what he was trying to figure out.

A sudden burst of muttered agreement followed Harry's statement, with even Hermione begrudgingly admitting that Daphne would make a good club president.

"Then..." Daphne looked embarrassed at the sudden attention her word gave her. "Um. I guess we...need a vice-president?" she muttered, shy and red-faced.

"I nominate my--" Tracey started, clearly thinking about nominating herself, before hesitating. "Um, actually..."

"I nominate Harry to be the vice-president," Hermione suddenly said, pointing furiously at the now thoroughly confused boy who wasn't paying attention.

His pear barked. Neville's barked a few seconds later. Henry blinked. "First, let me take your pears back."

Henry walked to Harry, picking the fruit from his hand, and walked over to Neville and did the same. "Okay, now go back to whatever you were talking about," Henry said dismissively, staring fervently at the pears.

After about ten minutes of staring unblinkingly at the pears, Henry blinked rapidly to moisten his dried eyeballs. Then he turned back to his club. "So, you guys decide everything?"

"Yeah," Daphne said, quietly, ignoring Tracey's irritated glare at her brother. "I'm club president, Harry will be vice-president, Hermione's secretary, and Ernie will be treasurer. If that's...acceptable?"

"Oh, yeah, that's fi--wait, who's Ernie?" Henry asked. Everyone pointed to the Hufflepuff Henry didn't know, who was raising his hand. "Ah, okay, I don't really know you. Sorry about that."

"That's fine," the boy mumbled. Henry nodded with a grin and continued.

"Anyway, now that everyone has a role -- either staff or member -- keep in mind that they ultimately don't mean anything except for the records, and that staff has more stuff to do. Everyone is equal in the club and I don't want to see people lording their status over others." Henry frowned. "I get enough of that at home," he muttered, audible enough for everyone to hear, making Daphne turn away, embarrassed. "Most importantly, though, I expect you to actually want to come to club meetings. I promise I'll try to make them as fun as possible.

"Speaking of which, that's the next order of business: setting up a meeting time. I have to let Professor Umbridge know about the time for our next meeting so she can supervise the club," Henry admitted, and as he expected, everyone froze and then shouted in anger, surprise, and shock.

"I thought you said you weren't working with Umbridge!" Harry shouted, the only clear voice Henry could hear in the sudden cacophony, and Henry finally had enough. He waved his arm around and the air in the room got colder.

"An air rune. A very simple runic array, combining a bunch of minor things to create what is known as a "standard air rune". Combine it with a water rune," and he drew another one in the air, causing the room to get even colder. "And you get a nice air-conditioning effect. The classical elements, also known as the four or five Greek elements, coupled with the Chinese and Japanese five elements, each of which are separate, are one of the first things this club is going to study. More importantly, though.

"Knowing that Umbridge is the only reason this club was created without any supervision, knowing that Umbridge is pretty much the liaison between me and the Board of Governors, and knowing that it is only luck that I have apparently befriended her, is it any wonder that she needs to supervise it?" Henry grinned a crooked and lopsided smile. "I'll convince her to never have to supervise another meeting, if you manage to stay focused next meeting."

"What do you mean by that?" Hermione asked, stunned. "By the 'without any supervision' part?"

"Well," Henry shrugged, embarrassed. "Apparently threatening children is a bad idea when you're a teacher. Granted, I never learned any better, since my own sensei apparently never got the memo." He clapped his hands. "So I'm not _technically_ allowed to supervise detentions any more, nor am I allowed to interact with children without another faculty member to 'protect them' or something silly like that." He shrugged again. "Hey, I'm twenty-one. I'm allowed to make stupid mistakes sometimes."

Filch snickered in the background. Henry threw a pear at him, which he deftly caught. "Hey," Henry warned, shaking his finger. "No comments from the peanut gallery."

"I didn't say anything," Filch said with a toothy grin, cackling as Henry curled his hand into a fist and shook that at him.

" _Anyway,_ " Henry continued on, "if you haven't noticed, Argus seems awfully warm in this room. _Why?_ "

"Because he's, um, using a fire rune?" Hermione supposed, and Henry shook his head.

"That's about a third of it, yes, but just using a fire rune would mean that he would actually be on fire." Henry grinned. "So that's not entirely it."

"It's a...fire rune, mixed with a layer of a water rune?" Daphne guessed, and Henry raised an eyebrow.

"Above or below?"

Daphne shook her head, unable to answer. Henry turned to the rest of the club. "Anyone?"

Hermione also shook her head, but it was one of the twins who answered. "It's gotta be above, right?"

Henry nodded. "Yes, it has to be. When using this runic script, air is one of the five immutable elements; the other four are fire and water, which you've already seen, earth, which looks like this," Henry paused a bit to draw a rune in the floor with his finger, and the floor caved in the exact pattern of the rune without any effort on Henry's part, "and the fifth, divine element known as the quintessence, although the ancient Greeks called it the aether, and the ancient Indians called it the akasha. As to how it has to be above, the ancient Greek philosopher Proclus surmised that there were three aspects to the main four elements: sharpness, subtlety, and mobility. Fire is sharp, subtle, and mobile; air is also subtle and mobile, except it's blunt where fire is sharp. Let's put it another way, since this group seems to be lost here," Henry ended with a chuckle.

Henry drew a fire rune on the ground, and waved his hand to form a water rune in the air, and then activated both at the same time. The fire rune spat out a fireball that stayed in place. "Hmm...how about..." He looked at the children staring in awe at the display. "Tori, come here." The youngest person in the club stood up and obediently went to Henry's side. "Now touch the fireball."

"What?!" Astoria looked at her brother as if he was crazy. Well, Henry thought, he probably was.

"Touch it. Go on," Henry urged, seeing as Astoria wasn't all that willing to put her hand into a giant fireball. Henry grabbed her hand gently and guided it, instead. "From the top, here, like this. There. Now just gently push down." Henry put his hand on the bottom of the fireball as Astoria pushed down on the same fireball, neither of them burning their hands.

Astoria stared at the fireball, and then her hand, with wide eyes, and then withdrew her hand from the burning, _cold_ ball of fire. " _Whoa._ "

Henry chuckled and nodded. "Whoa."

Tracey got up and went to stick her hand in the fireball. She pulled it out quickly, but then put it back in, slightly more hesitantly. "It...doesn't burn?"

Henry grinned and looked down at the confused Slytherin. "Nope! It's actually still burning. But I drew a water rune in the air that suppressed the flame; what it does is make the fire go around your arm harmlessly. The fire rune keeps its shape, though, so the fireball is trying to go around your arm and keep its shape at the same time, making it push down."

"'Ey, Henry," Filch called out. "What'd happen if you smashed it and made it turn into tiny fireballs, hm?"

"Ah, don't do that," Henry chuckled with nostalgia. "The fire splits off into many different parts and burns everything, since the water rune only worked for the fireball. It's a pain to put out, let me tell you." He looked at the twins. "Now, what would happen if I were to put the water rune _below_ the fire rune? Obviously, right now that would have been impossible, since I put the fire rune in the ground, but if I put fire and water in the air, water below fire..."

He proceeded to do so, and the room filled up with smoke. "And that's why it doesn't work," Henry smiled through the thick air; it was just water vapor, really, so it wasn't particularly unpleasant, just humid. "Fire is all three of the textures: sharp, subtle, and mobile. Therefore, nothing can go below it and work the way we want it to; adding things below it makes it more volatile. Adding air below fire makes the room turn dry, with little moisture in the air; meanwhile, earth below fire is a recipe for a bomb."

"A bomb?" Daphne's eyes were wide. "Can you show us?"

"Sure," Henry smiled, and lit the fuse, before quickly running earth runes around the ticking bomb, forming a solid box of earth that successfully muffled the most potent part of the blast. "The blast can be used to push people away, and the shrapnel is dangerous and potentially fatal, but it's not really that strong."

"You'd need to use stronger fire runes, then?" Daphne mused to herself, biting her thumbnail in a surprisingly cute manner. "Or stronger earth runes...you'd need to have more earth runes to make a more potent base...sharper shrapnel..."

"My sister, the demolitions expert," Henry whined playfully, making increasingly elaborate gestures pantomiming sadness. "My beautiful, sweet and dainty sister, obsessed with explosives. Where, oh where, did I go wrong?"

Astoria giggled. The two Ravenclaw girls that weren't blonde and the Hufflepuffs were smirking in obvious humor. The Gryffindors and the blonde Ravenclaw were taking notes or something.

Daphne ignored all of them and continued to mutter to herself, staring at the box that once contained an explosion.

Henry blinked, then nudged her shoulder. "Uh, Daphne. You...probably shouldn't play with explosives yet? I don't really want you hurt." He smiled a tentative, awkward smile, and Daphne blinked back to awareness.

"Oh, s-sorry." Daphne blushed instantly, embarrassed beyond belief. Tracey nudged her playfully in the shoulder, and Daphne pushed back with a grimace. Tracey just grinned.

"Right." Henry coughed. "Let's, ah, let's continue, then."

* * *

Notebook

November 28, 1995

Wow, I haven't written in you in...geez, it's been, what, two years? Apparently it was right before I asked my girlfriend for her hand in marriage, so I'll just make this as summarized as possible.

She said yes, if you could believe it, and I could hardly believe my ears. It was the greatest day in my life, although I'm really hoping that my wedding day will be better. Whenever that is.

I honestly hope it's soon. Every time I think about it, I get really nervous. I don't know what she was thinking when she said yes; hell, I don't remember what I was thinking, offering myself for marriage. I'm twenty-one, I'm not really ready for this!

Except, well, father seems okay with it, and my sisters all are on board with the idea. Oh, that reminds me! We've totally made up. Sometimes father slips and calls me by that awful name, but he's actually called me Henry a few times unprompted! I have hope for the man. Mother is...a bit stubborn, but she'll come around. They act so similar sometimes, I think they'd actually like each other! Or...or they'd yell at each other for the next forty years. One or the other; hopefully the former, probably the latter.

I kind of just fast-forwarded two years. I'm working at Hogwarts! Yeah, the wizard school. Yes, I'm still magic-less. I just started in July of this year, so it's a bit confusing for me, and other than getting censured by the board of governors (they're the guys who run the school) I think I'm doing pretty well! You know, for a guy who never actually attended any formal schooling, other than whatever my girlfriend told me about Japanese schools and the education I had getting the crap beaten out of me by my teacher, but you already knew that, seeing as how you're a book that I used to write in all the time. I have a club, too, and my sisters are in it. Today, Daphne nearly blew everyone up, it was hilarious in hindsight. Not so much during the actual event. Thankfully, I knew how to defuse a polarized earth rune bomb; if I didn't, well...

I'm honestly scared, diary. Something big is happening, and I don't know if I can manage to survive it. If, in the event that I'm already dead, and somebody comes and reads these entries, once they get to this part, please, contact everyone I've ever met. You'll know, since you've already read the previous entries. Please, tell them that I love them. I don't know if I'll get the chance to, so I'm writing this down here, just to make sure that they know. It never hurts to be paranoid, except in relationships, and this thing we have here isn't a relationship. You're a book. It wouldn't work out. And if you're reading this, then I'm dead, and that would work out even less. Please for the love of sanity don't call a necromancer; I have enough problems as it is.

Oh well. Enough dark thoughts. Back to work for me! Papers, ugh.

Henry


	10. The Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Henry becomes creepy and then plans stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's note:** Ernie's way of talking was an experiment I decided to keep; I didn't do it with Filch, so it's kind of jarring, and I apologize.
> 
> I SPENT _MONTHS_ WRITING THIS. My writing is jumpier than usual, since I gave up trying to pad the sections with information and just pushed to get something done. Also my writing style might have changed thanks to the hiatus. I blame school.

Daphne sat down at a table in the library, penning a paper plan. To her left, Hermione Granger was diligently recording information spoken in the meeting. To her right, Harry Potter was reading an older transcript, and in front of her Ernie Macmillan sat back and relaxed.

"What does a 'treasurer' do in this club, anyway?" Ernie asked, effectively breaking the silence. Daphne sighed and put her pen down.

"I don't...know," she admitted. "But Henry said...it was a good idea, and...I'm inclined to believe him."

"Yeah, but, it don't really _mean_ anything, does it?" Ernie said with a shrug. "I mean, yeah, I get it, he's your brother and you wanna help him out an' all, but what am I really supposed to _do?_ "

"The...the plan was..." Daphne mentally cursed her sudden bout of anxiety as she struggled to formulate a complete sentence. "I, um...we were going to...bounce ideas off of each other? And...it was a good idea to bring a Hufflepuff into the mix, since...I'm a Slytherin, and they're...both Gryffindors. It's...a mediator for these meetings?"

Ernie sat back and rubbed his chin. "So...'s just a name, then? Really don't mean anything, huh? I mean," he waved aimlessly. "I got no idea how we could raise funds, or even if we're _allowed_ to."

Daphne nodded, not trusting her words at this point. Hermione spoke up. "I think that's brilliant, really, I know you're pretty enthusiastic about this stuff like the rest of us so we can just bounce potential ideas off of each other, the four of us, and then we can talk about it next club meeting." Hermione glanced at Daphne as she finished, and Daphne gratefully nodded to her. "So, any ideas?"

Harry spoke up from his spot. "I have an idea on the money part," he said. "We could probably sell minor rune arrays for a price, and use it as fundraiser material. I kind of remember Muggles doing something similar with...cookies, I think."

Hermione's eyes lit up. "Fundraising! Why didn't I think of that?"

Daphne hummed. "Um...what would we do with...any potential monetary gain?"

Ernie shrugged. "Right now, that ain't a concern, since we have no outstanding fiscal liabilities, but if we need to it's good to have financial assets in reserve."

"Wow, big words, didn't expect that," Daphne muttered, then froze. "I-I didn't mean to..."

Ernie waved her off. "Yeah, I know, I don't really look the part to be smart about this kinda stuff." Then he grinned. "But my pops always said it was a good idea for a man to know about where his money goes."

Daphne nodded again, face burning crimson. Ernie's grin grew wider. "Of course, If ya keep talkin' without thinkin' about what you're sayin', no wonder you need a mediator."

It was at that point that Henry walked into the library. Daphne hid her face behind her book.

"Hey there, children I like to hang around with!" Henry said happily. "You guys got the studying down?"

"I have no idea what that means," Daphne said bluntly, and Henry chuckled.

"Okay, okay." Henry stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Anything you kids need help with?"

"We have absolutely no idea what we're doing," Harry said. Henry laughed, and Daphne suddenly realized how much older he looked.

"To be fair, I don't know what I'm doing, either." Henry paused. "I actually read a book about clubs the other day. Apparently I did it wrong. Half of the positions I suggested aren't even necessary."

Daphne and Henry had a small square-off with their eyes, before Henry sighed. "Ernie and Hermione's spots aren't necessary."

"Pfft," Ernie said, standing up. "In that case, see ya."

"I'd rather have three over one," Daphne replied coolly, and Ernie stopped in his tracks.

"Perhaps," Henry hummed, non-committal. "But it's tougher to manage that." Daphne arched an eyebrow. Henry chuckled. "I know, I know, _you're a Greengrass, you can handle this._ Spare me the discourse, Daphne. I've had the old man's rant before." But despite his words and relaxed posture, his eyes were hard and calculating.

Daphne tried to smile. It probably didn't turn out very pleasant. "Then you know my position on this."

Henry's grin dropped and he stared at Daphne before nodding curtly, once, and walking away.

Once he left, Hermione instantly rounded on her. "Why did you have to be so rude? He was only trying to help!"

"He was being patronizing," Daphne replied, eyes cold. "There's a major difference, there."

"There's no way you could have--"

"When you've lived with him," Daphne interrupted Hermione's rant. "It's much easier to tell when he's truly feeling helpful, and when he's only doing anything out of some misguided sense of pity. Pity we don't need."

"Why are you so cold?" Harry asked, seemingly at random, and Daphne blinked at the non-sequitir. Then she opened her eyes in amazement and blushed.

"S-sorry. I...do that a lot." Daphne instantly reverted to the meek and shy girl she started out as. Harry and Ernie were not convinced, but Hermione convinced the two to focus on the planning instead of the behavior change.

* * *

At first, Harry Potter didn't know what to make of the new Professor. Ron was adamant that he was a Dark wizard, as he does with all Slytherins, and Hermione was refuting that because of his preference for Muggle suits. But then he stood up and made his introductory speech, and all previous assumptions flew out the metaphorical window. A Squib teacher, and one well-versed with Muggle culture, at that. Harry thought that his class would be interesting, although he was mildly annoyed that he still couldn't drop Trelawney's class.

And then he actually _talked_ to the Squib professor, and, to his eternal embarrassment, bawled his eyes out in their first meeting. But Harry couldn't help it; Professor Greengrass, Henry as he liked to be called, was just so _comfortable._ He radiated this sort of "big-brother" feeling that was at once comfortable and protective.

Henry managed to get him into his class (dropping Divination, of course), where Harry realized a hidden passion for runes, and actually did well in, disregarding Ron's complaints. And Henry was always available after his classes; Harry often went to his office, to talk about anything Harry wanted off his chest, and Henry was kind and cool and everything that he wanted in an older brother figure.

Sirius was his godfather, yes, and Dumbledore filled the role as his grandfather, but Henry was definitely the 'big brother' in Harry's mind.

They talked about all sorts of stuff, ranging from Quidditch to presents to irrational anger, and everything in between. More than once Harry came in with a Voldemort complaint, and Henry was always willing to pause in his work to listen to Harry's complaints and offer advice.

But Daphne made Henry look so sad and frustrated, and Harry didn't like that look on his face at all. Harry surreptitiously grabbed Hermione and asked her to come with him to cheer the professor up; Hermione, always eager to please authority, agreed. Arriving at Henry's office, Harry knocked on the door firmly, and the door swung open slowly.

Henry sat there, fiddling with a Muggle pen. He looked up at the two, and smiled. "What is it, Harry? Hermione?"

"Professor, we just wanted to apologize for Daphne being rude to you," Harry started, but subsided at Henry's nonchalant waving of his hand.

"It's not a problem. She does that all the time, I'm honestly used to it." Henry grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It wouldn't be her if she didn't ridicule me at every turn."

"Still," Harry frowned. "It shouldn't be like that. It's not really fair since you just wanted to help."

"Thanks, Harry," Henry almost muttered. "But, to be perfectly honest, if she wasn't the way she was, I would _break_ her." This time his smile turned distinctly malicious. "It's one of the banes of living in a house of snakes."

Hermione gasped, and Harry was tempted to do the same. "But, Professor--"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Henry continued on, as lazily as if he was talking about the weather. "But the Greengrass family has traditionally been very Slytherin. Utterly neutral, yes, but Slytherin, through and through. Growing up in such an environment, regardless of who you are, you get this sense of self-superiority and delusions of grandeur that are very hard to overcome." His smile turned somewhat more cheery. "Astoria's the first one in a long while that hasn't succumbed to the allure of power. I'm really happy for her, actually, even if my old man messed everything up with his stupid plots." He turned to Harry, eyes assessing the boy. "I have a dislike for old people with absurd plots and attempts to take over my life. I already know three, and I think you know one, yourself."

Harry was startled by Henry's sudden moodswing. Previously, Henry seemed to be more sociable and comfortable, if affable at times. But at this moment Harry felt the sheer coldness in his voice, and shivered a bit under his penetrating gaze. Hermione, too, looked no better off, although she managed to stutter out, "H-how did you just...?"

"Change my demeanor so fast?" Henry smiled such a bland smile that it had Harry taking a step back. "It's the Greengrass specialty." He stood up, ignoring the two student's frightened flinches as he paced around his own office. "Daphne has her bouts of coldness that I'm sure you're familiar with. Our mother, too, has bouts of madness, although hers are far more pronounced and less...sporadic. And, unfortunately, I haven't escaped that fate, either, despite my being neither female nor a witch. As you can tell," Henry finally finished his spiel, leaning in far too close to Harry for his comfort. "It's a bit scary, isn't it?"

Harry wanted to respond that, no, it's not, and that this isn't really Henry speaking, but his back was dripping with nervous sweat that he simply couldn't deny, Hermione was still frozen to her spot like the petrification three years ago, and Henry simply stood there smiling his damn expressionless smile.

"So, in the end, you understand now why we treat each other the way we do," Henry finished, almost with a chirp in his voice, as the soul-crushing atmosphere dissipated entirely. Harry let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and he heard rather than saw Hermione's knees collapse. "Of course, I grew up in Japan and away from the house of snakes, but I'm very familiar with the way Daphne treats me and, vice-versa, I'm aware of the way I treat her." He blinked, and the smile slipped entirely off of his face. "Hermione, what are you doing on the floor?"

"I, uh," Hermione's mind scrambled to provide a coherent sentence. "Slipped."

"While standing up," Henry stated calmly. "I don't know whether I should be impressed or scared of your clumsiness." He then waved his arms around in a pattern Harry wasn't familiar with. "Well, whatever, I'm sure you two have more work to do." And with that, Harry and Hermione basically flew out of his office. As the door slammed behind them, Harry swore he could see a glimpse of sheer hatred cross his face.

* * *

Astoria giggled as she bounced around on a bubble. Henry's lesson on combination runes struck her as odd, since it wasn't at her class's level and she didn't understand it yet, but volunteering to be the demonstration was always a lot of fun. Unless it hurt. Astoria silently thanked her brother for using her in a demonstration that didn't hurt.

"That's what happens when you add the properties of rubber to the base of a bubble," Henry finished.

With a clap, the bubble disappeared, and Astoria landed hard on her butt. She took back her silent thanks. Wincing, she slowly got up, ignoring the bit of pain that disappeared shortly after.

"And this is at the core of convergent runes," Henry continued to the club, helping Astoria up. "This isn't in the N.E.W.T.'s here, because the British Ministry of Magic deemed it 'far too difficult', but it's really not that hard if you're using a language other than Futhark. Just runic language combination utilizing polar runes and--oh, hello, Professor Umbridge. Or is it Inquisitor?"

"Head Inquisitor, yes," Umbridge smiled the sickly-sweet smile she became known (and reviled) for. Astoria suppressed a shudder. "It appears that you really are a brilliant person, despite your undesirable Squib status."

"Well, yes," Henry said, blinking innocently. "That's why I'm the youngest Professor on staff since Severus. I mean, Professor Snape."

"If you want to advance in the world," Umbridge continued, "then you'd have to get into a valued mar--"

Henry threw his arms up. " _Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,_ **whoa.** _**Whoa.** Whoa._ Let's not even _go_ there. I have a fianceé, okay? And we're getting married next month."

"Oh." Umbridge briefly looked put out. "Well, the Ministry can help--"

"Look, Dolores," Henry said, putting his face in his palm. "I appreciate your help with everything. It's just...please don't butt into my personal life. No pun intended, Tori," he looked at Astoria with a wry grin, and Astoria giggled. "But, really, my personal life is fine. Everything's great." He blinked. "I just jinxed it, didn't I?"

"Jinx?" Umbridge blinked. "But you're a Squib."

"It's a...figure of speech," Henry replied. "I don't actually mean a jinx, I just mean that something bad's gonna happen now that I said nothing bad's happening." At the blank looks he received, he sighed. "Never mind.""

Umbridge nodded. "Fair enough." And with that, she turned to leave.

Henry waved at her. "Yes, you'll get an invitation to it!" Umbridge kept walking but waved her arm in acknowledgment. Henry put his arm down. "Right, where were we?"

"Did she seriously just try to get you to marry her?" Daphne asked in a deadpan.

"You're getting _married?!_ " Astoria squealed.

Henry laughed. "Of course I am!" He then turned to Daphne. "And, no, she offered to choose a bride for me, which I obviously don't need, and then offered the Ministry to host the wedding, which...wouldn't be a good idea." He looked a bit shifty at this. "For many reasons."

"How do you know that?" Daphne asked, again in that monotone. "She certainly didn't say any of that herself."

If anything, Henry looked even more shifty. "We hang out a lot." Before any more comments could be made on that vein, Henry coughed loudly. "Something that I managed to get approved is a field trip, for those in this club who are interested." Every person in the club looked interested, so Henry soldiered on. "I'm planning on taking you all to the rune society I grew up in. In Japan."

He shrugged, ignoring the raucous cheers that twelve teenagers can generate. "I'll need you guys to get forms signed by your parents, of course, except for you, Harry -- I asked the Headmaster already, and he approved -- and then Daphne and Astoria for obvious reasons." Smiling, he pulled out the forms from seemingly nowhere, and handed them out. "It'll take place sometime over the winter break." He then looked quizzical. "I don't think you'll be back in time for Christmas, but you'll definitely be back before the new year. At least, that's the plan."

"How long is the trip?" someone asked. Astoria didn't pay attention to who it was, but she was already really excited for the trip. Not only to go to a new place, but she also got to stay with her big brother!

"About six days," Henry replied. "But it might go on longer."

Astoria grinned, and Henry grinned in response. "It'll be a learning experience, but I'll try to make it fun. We'll see." He clapped his hands together and papers flew out of his desk and into piles. "Everyone, make sure to pick up a stack and send it to your parents. Except for Harry, Daphne and Astoria, of course." Henry paused. "Also, you'll need passports."

* * *

Henry grinned as the last members of the club left, chattering eagerly. He closed the door behind himself, and locked it, before turning to the person behind him. "I'm ready. Let's go."

Umbridge nodded.

* * *

Notebook

December 3

The beginning of January! That's when I'm getting married! She confirmed it with her family. Oh, god, I'm so excited.

Also, I just read my previous entry, and: _diary?_ I thought I outgrew that years ago. Heck, that's why I write 'Notebook' at the top of every page. I don't know, it's just a small thing I noticed. I always notice the small things, it seems, even when it doesn't particularly benefit me to notice. It can get annoying after a while, for both me and whoever's near me.

Harry Potter's probably mad at me, now that I've revealed the Greengrass secret to him. Who knows, maybe it'll stick and he won't blindly trust people after that. One can only hope. On the plus side, it's not really a secret; I think everyone who studies history knows about the Greengrass madness. Hogwarts...well, actually, maybe not, since Binns is gone now, and I'll have to ask if Babbling knows about it. I'm not really sure why I mentioned it to him, or that girl Granger, but I'm sure I had a reason I thought was appropriate. I don't know.

When I took this job, I certainly didn't expect to befriend Madame Umbridge, considering my mother's sheer dislike of the woman, but that's apparently what happened. I really have inherited my father's gift of companionship. Now, if only I could've gotten rid of my mother's madness traits... Oh well, I can't win 'em all.

I remember when I got this book. I only really used it in the beginning to keep my English skill sharp, in the land of the rising sun, but now it's been invaluable for keeping track of my thought processes. I skimmed through earlier entries and, wow, I'm pretty stupid. Oh well. It's like a little glimpse of history. Maybe when I die I'll just give it to my wife or one of my sisters or something.

Henry


	11. The Apotheosis of Prometheus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title of the chapter is a misnomer; Henry does absolutely nothing of importance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is stupid. This story is really stupid, and I'm not even sure what I'm doing any more. Just rereading it makes me cringe because what the hell was I thinking? It doesn't help that I rushed everything really fast and there's like zero development. Getting back into the flow of writing the half-assed, fast-paced structure was... But anyway, here's another chapter. (The field trip mentioned will most likely be covered in an external one-shot, because it's a crossover and has very little to do with the story other than the first few lines of this chapter.)
> 
> Henry did that "president", "vice-president" thing because the only club he understands even vaguely are Japanese ones, where they actually do have club presidents, although the actual club is structured more like a student council. (At least, that's how anime tells it, and who am I to doubt anime? I've been to all of one Japanese school, and I didn't have the time to ask how clubs worked.) The students agree with it because none of them have ever been in an orthodox club and assume that Henry knows what he's doing (he doesn't). Hermione and Harry's experience in the club will allow them to better manage their already-created DA. Also, most importantly, he did that so he could have a neat-looking list of students in his club for Umbridge's perusal. I needed to write this down so I can remember why I did that and not cringe at how badly I implemented that whole thing. (It's not working.)
> 
> And no, I don't remember the Order of the Phoenix timeline. Give me a break, I haven't read it in about twelve years.

"Well, that was a fun trip," Henry said cheerfully as he put his gloves away into a container by his desk. Marveling at the ring on his finger, he rubbed it a few times, thinking of his new wife.

Entirely unexpectedly, she showed up in the field trip, and then dragged him around for a few days before ending up at a wedding reception.

Henry liked that about her.

He had to get Professor Babbling to cover for him, though, as the wedding ended up going over his planned itinerary, but he didn't really mind.

He picked up some papers, skimmed through them, and sighed, before picking up a pen. "Still have to mark papers," he grumbled, and spent ten minutes doing exactly that.

Before getting bored again and spending far too much time staring at his ring.

There was a knock on his door, and Henry started, jumping from his chair almost literally. Unusually, Dolores Umbridge stumbled into the room, and Henry could smell the faint smells of intoxication wafting from her body.

"Dolores?" Henry blinked. This was highly irregular.

"Henry," Umbridge muttered, stumbling into a desk. " _Henry._ "

"Yes, that's my name," Henry snarked, but went up to her anyway. "Are you _drunk?_ "

"Got anything stronger than Firewhiskey?" Umbridge retorted, before sighing and slamming her head onto the desk. "The hell am I doing here, Greengrass?"

"I don't know, why _are_ you here?" Henry said, shifting awkwardly. "This is my office." 

Umbridge burped and sighed. "I _hate_ kids. How'd I get Cornelius to talk me into this...?"

Henry stared blankly at her for a few seconds. "...You hate kids."

"Mm." Umbridge took a swig of her Firewhiskey, burping flames.

"You're _teaching._ In a _school._ And you hate kids."

"'S not really _teaching,_ " Umbridge said. "Jus'...teachin' them how not to be an army."

Henry blinked. "...you are aware that Dumbledore _isn't_ actually making an army, right?"

Umbridge scowled, then slammed her hands on the desk, furious. "And how do you _know?!_ "

Henry sighed, rubbing his forehead. "...Albus is _old,_ Dolores. Even if he _were_ running to become Minister, he'd be dead within the _decade._ What would be the point of raising an army for very little gain?"

Umbridge frowned deeper, and Henry sighed again, rolling his head around his neck and cringing at the pop that it gave. Finally she spoke. "...what?"

Henry just blinked. "Dumbledore's going to be dead within the decade; he's far too old to become Minister, regardless, and even if he was, his term would last, what, five years?" Henry shrugged. "Hardly an amount of time that needs to be rushed, I'd say. Also, like I told my father: they're _school-children_. Hardly good enough to fight full-fledged Aurors."

Umbridge blinked and then, quite literally, broke down in front of Henry, tears cascading off of her face as she bawled her eyes out and crumpled to the floor, knocking the Firewhiskey to the ground. Henry hastily activated the silencing runes he had planted in the room. "All of this was for _NOTHING?!_ "

Henry shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah."

Umbridge was at that odd stage between anger and despair that Henry was intimately familiar with, including the incoherent nonsense that she vented, so he sat down and leaned back in his chair, waiting for the storm to pass.

There were knocks at the door that Henry was more than willing to ignore (a quick glance at his clock showed that it was time for his next class), but Henry waited for Umbridge to at least pass the conflicting stage. Indeed, half a minute later, Umbridge stopped ranting and raving and instead went deathly quiet.

"Dolores," Henry asked gently. "I have a class now, so if you would be so kind as to depart? I'll talk with you later, I promise. Do try not to kill anyone on the way out," he added as an afterthought.

Umbridge just sat there, and Henry sighed, before physically pushing her chair to the corner and writing privacy runes around the corner and on the desk. The space around Umbridge folded and bent, and suddenly Henry felt like she wasn't even there, even though he logically understood that she was.

Henry released the silencing runes and unlocked the door, greeting them as he walked back towards his desk. "Good morning, class." The students flooded in, some responding to Henry's greeting with a nod, or a "good morning, Professor," some just flat out ignoring him. Henry couldn't blame them, particularly, as they were the ones that went on the field trip.

"I see that some of you are half-dead," Henry chuckled, amid a round of scattered laughter. "Did you enjoy the trip?" The dead-looking students nodded but still kept silent, heads already meeting their desks. Henry chuckled again (he, himself, was far too tired to laugh, let alone how the children must feel), and turned towards the board. "I believe we were on reticulating arrays? Surely, Babbling discussed _something_ about the topic."

A fourth-year Hufflepuff raised his hand. Henry called on him. "Um...we were still doing Berg's theorems."

Henry blinked. "Really?" A quick shuffle of his notes later, he found the section they were supposed to be on. "Huh. Well, alright. What did Babbling go over?"

"It was mostly just vocabulary and effects of the runes in certain positions on the two-dimensional rune matrix," a Ravenclaw responded after Henry called on her.

Henry raised his hands to the sky. " _Why._ " The class giggled at this. "Well, okay, that _is_ important stuff, but, well, whatever. Which one are we on...? Ah, his fifteenth." He wrote down a nice, large 15 on the board. "Okay. So, Berg's fourteenth theorem says that crossing two ley lines is impossible. On that same vein, Berg's fifteenth theorem says that crossing two polar runes is also impossible, for the exact same principles. You don't know what polar runes are, yet, that's fine, so we can safely skip that, although you should still probably write it down." Henry wrote it out on the board -- 'It is impossible to cross two polar runes directly.' -- and continued. 

"The sixteenth theorem..." A nice, large 16. "This one is important -- the magical overload effect -- if enough magic is pushed through a circuit, it can and very often will break, as you well know. The overload effect is actually a very systematic effect, in that if any magical runic array is overloaded, it will reliably generate a specific sequence of leakage -- but that sequence is dependent on the runic array in question." He wrote down on the board, 'It is known that any two arrays of exact properties will fail in the exact same way.' He then elaborated, "What this means is, say I had a standard protection rune embedded in this desk here. Mr. Corner, what would happen if I overloaded this?"

"It would explode," the Ravenclaw answered, bored, and the class snickered. 

Henry shrugged. "Well, yes, but go into more detail."

"It would explode _violently_ ," the Ravenclaw answered again.

"Ah, no," Henry said, "the explosion isn't particularly more or less violent than a normal overload, but it does explode with yellow sparks everywhere, and what _exactly_ happens is that these two parts of the array," he pointed to the top and bottom of the array, which had little nubs at the end, "would overload pretty spectacularly, causing the entire array to fall apart. With Berg's sixteenth theorem, we can actually mitigate this effect by placing suppressor runes around it, around _these areas_ specifically, and it would nullify the entire overload sequence. Of course, then the suppressor runes themselves could be overloaded, but it's more difficult to overload a rune whose entire purpose is to prevent overload."

"Artemis?" his father called through the mirror on his desk; his voice was controlled but with an audible note of urgency. Henry blinked at the voice, and the class stilled. "It's an emergency: please get back to the Greengrass Garden immediately."

As soon as his voice died down, Henry ran out of the classroom, putting his suit jacket on as he ran.

* * *

"ALBUS!" the Squib Professor called as he entered the hallway towards his office. He tapped the gargoyle statue on the head with a rune, and it moved aside easily; Henry sprinted up the stairs. "ALBUS, I NEED YOUR FLOO!"

The Headmaster looked up from the paperwork on his desk and smiled pleasantly. "Ah, Hen--"

"NO TIME," Henry shouted, and grabbed Dumbledore's robe, to his shock. "Protect my sisters with your _life_ ," he stressed, before grabbing the Floo and throwing it violently into the fireplace. "GREENGRASS GARDEN!"

Dumbledore blinked, then looked around his office. "Fawkes? I need you." The familiar call of the phoenix made him smile.

* * *

Henry exited the Floo, quickly analyzed the situation, then went into his pockets, grabbing paper barrier runes and throwing them down haphazardly, activating them as he ran around the burning building. He swore as a piece of flaming rubble came crashing down in front of him, but jumped over it gamely and went on his way. He opened the door to his father's study, but didn't find him there, so he ran to the master bedroom instead.

He found people with dark cloaks and shimmering masks standing outside of the door; he punched the closest one with an explosion array in his hand, and that one fell backwards onto the others, where they all exploded violently. Henry placed another explosion rune on the doorway, clenching his free hand around some more paper arrays, and the instant it exploded, he jumped in.

The people with masks noticed the explosions and pointed their wands at the doorway, but Henry was faster: he placed runes directly onto the two robed men in front of him and ran quickly into the middle of the room, barely assessing his mother's fallen form and his father hovering over her as he flew into action. The two men he placed runes on suddenly seized, and Henry flung two special knives into the wall in front of him; the instant they were embedded into the wall, lightning shot out from the seal, electrocuting all of the foreign wizards, and reached the knives across the room.

"Dad, what's going on?" Henry quickly asked, looking around to see if he missed anything.

"Your mother," Henry's father struggled to say. "A stray curse --" here they both had to duck to dodge a curse. Henry flung a knife directly towards the man that fired the curse, and it pierced through his forehead like butter, killing him instantly. "She was hit, earlier, and I tried to stabilize her --"

The other door exploded, at the same time as the window, and Henry bit down a curse, throwing protection runes here and there, the pieces of paper being flung around like knives. Throwing a stack of papers on the ground, he picked up his mother from his father's arms, and placed her on the resulting cloud, saying "Get to Hogwarts. _Quickly._ "

The cloud flew away at a surprisingly quick speed, his mother lying on it all the while. His father hesitated, and Henry took advantage of his hesitation, driving a sharp fist to the back of his neck, where he fell unconscious.

Carrying the limp body, he sprinted back towards the Floo, cloud trailing him all the while, before a well-aimed curse hit him in the back and he fell, both of them collapsing.

Henry dimly noticed a burst of flame from the fireplace, before all turned black.

* * *

Notebook

January 15 (one day before the events of this chapter)

Doesn't something in the air feel off to you...? Well, you're a book, I don't think you'd understand.

Anyway, today was boring to the point where I hope something exciting happens tomorrow. Nothing eventful happened today, except maybe grading papers, but even if I think it's surprising how quickly they're advancing through the curriculum, it's still nothing too special. Maybe I'm just used to geniuses.

Well, tomorrow's another day.

Henry


	12. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a rewrite planned. Plot will be basically the same, except explained better, and with better pacing, I hope. Don't expect it any time soon. Here, have the ending. (Notes continue at the end.)

Henry groaned and woke up, disoriented and bleary-eyed, getting up from the floor. He heard the crunching of leaves underneath someone's foot, and blinked, looking up at the crowd of Death Eaters staring at him. Directly in front of him, lazily sitting on a chair, was Voldemort, with his right-hand Bellatrix regaling the other Death Eaters with some sort of chant that seemed to motivate them.

"Oh, joy," Henry drawled, and out of the corners of his eyes he could see the Death Eaters tense angrily. "You're going to kill me. What a finely-tuned response to the situation."

Bellatrix sneered, but was interrupted by a chuckle. "You certainly have a lot of bravery to defy me, Squib," the voice said, hissing out the word _Squib_ like it personally offended him.

"Well it's not like you're in any way intimidating, Noseless," Henry shot back. "Besides, nothing you can do can hurt me, so why bother?"

" _Crucio_ ," Voldemort hissed in reply, and Henry bit back a scream as it tore through his protections like paper.

"Well," Henry said, fatigued, when Voldemort released the spell. " _Shit._ " The Death Eaters jeered and laughed at Henry's misfortune as he stumbled to get up.

"Nothing...can hurt you?" Voldemort chuckled. "Clearly, you _insult_ me."

Henry stood as well as he could while his nerves were flaring in phantom pain. "I've done worse," Henry scoffed, before wincing.

"Indeed -- your very existence is an insult," Voldemort said with a cruel smile. " _Imperio._ "

Henry felt incredibly light-headed, as if the world suddenly stopped mattering in that instant. His muscles felt like they were in water, and he could just float away. All he wanted to do was follow what the voice was saying, which was to turn around and kill his fami--

"No." Henry shook off Voldemort's Imperius Curse and stumbled away from him, crawling along the floor, inching his way away. Voldemort's face raised in surprise, before setting into a malicious, overconfident smirk. As he raised his wand, Henry braced himself for what he knew was coming next.

" _Avada Kedavra._ "

"NO!" A pink blur rushed in front of Henry and took the hit, toppling on top of Henry.

His eyes widened. " _Dolores?_ "

_How in the world did you get here?_ went unasked, because she was in no state to respond, what with being dead and all -- but Henry was more than sure that Dolores was no Death Eater. Henry felt his blood boil -- not a good sign. He could also see Voldemort lazily flicking his wand -- also not a good sign. And the haze around his eyes gave him a small case of tunnel vision -- probably the worst sign.

The magic in the air exploded as Henry's wrist guards cracked from the sheer strain Henry placed on them. Rapidly writing runes on his wrist guards, Henry dodged and ducked around the spellfire Voldemort caused, punching the obstacles Voldemort placed in front of him and breaking them into a fine grain.

Before Voldemort could react, Henry was within arm's reach, and he punched Voldemort square in the face. Voldemort went flying, and Henry followed him into the tree, where Voldemort was punched again, breaking through the tree on impact.

Here is how it ends:

A stray curse hit Henry in the back, and Henry froze, allowing Voldemort time to get up. Smirking cruelly, he waved his wand once more.

Henry threw an explosion rune towards the people behind him, and the space burst into a plethora of still-warm flesh and guts. The resulting rain of blood was enough to mask his movement, as he once again punched Voldemort in the face. But Voldemort's spell hit its target, and Henry felt his blood chill in his veins as he turned towards Voldemort's target.

"...dad?"

His father _screamed_ , voice going octaves higher than Henry thought possible from the man.

Something within him _snapped_ , and Henry _moved_.

* * *

When he came to, he lied face up in a pool of blood and guts. Voldemort and Dumbledore were evenly locked in combat, and while the other Death Eaters were around him, their numbers were far fewer and far away from Henry's pile of gore.

Henry got up -- not an easy feat, as his muscles protested every movement -- and the Death Eaters surrounding the bloody area tensed.

Henry licked his lips, and instantly regretted it as the taste of blood filled his sense. Quickly spitting it out, he glared at the closest Death Eater, who flinched and shied away.

He tried lifting his arms to get up, but he found that they were too heavy, too fatigued to continue.

Before he could move any more, however, he heard a large pop and his stomach fell.

"Ah, Bella," Lord Voldemort exclaimed at the newcomer, before casting one last spell. "Feel free to end this."

Bellatrix cackled, even as Voldemort himself retreated. Dumbledore tried to move closer, but was repelled by a barrier; even as he instantly started to dismantle it, Henry sighed, fatigued. "Any last words, Squib?"

A quick Ennervate had Henry's father awake; he instantly started to thrash against his bindings, but Bellatrix lazily waved a Petrificus Totalus over his body.

A Death Eater in full regalia grabbed the back of his father's head and forced his eyes open. "Congratulations," he sneered, "you'll be the receiver of your Squib's last words."

"Sorry, Mom, sorry, Dad," Henry said, as his tears started to flow. "This is the end for me. I appreciate everything you two have ever done for me."

Henry smiled at his father. "Daphne, Astoria, I love you two. Don't be too hasty in rushing headlong into what your heart desires; take some time to think about it, but if it's truly what you want, then let nothing stand in your way."

His father kept muttering, "No," but Henry sighed and knew that his time was up. Without turning to Bellatrix, who he knew was sneering and already preparing the final curse, he spoke, voice free of fear and pain. "And to my wife: I am so sorry. But I guess this is the end for me." He smiled. "Just...take care of yourself. That's all I could hope for."

The green light hit, and

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, end notes.
> 
> The original plan -- as in, _the entire reason I wrote this story_ \-- was because I wanted to kill off my original character. Completely and utterly intentional ending, there might have been hints leading up to it, but I don't remember if I actually implemented them or not. Also part of the original plan: a sequel to establish just what happens to the world after the events of this fic. That plan was scrapped because, other than the crossover influences I definitely alluded to, his presence barely affected anything in the Harry Potter series. Maybe a war or something between youkai and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, or something, but I don't have interest in writing that any more (other than the planned one-shot about the trip between chapters ten and eleven, which I'm still writing, but slowly).
> 
> In the rewrite I mentioned at the top of the page, most of the things I done goofed on are going to be re-implemented properly if I ever get around to doing it. So many original plans were thought up, then scrapped, then re-implemented, then re-removed... This story is proof on why writing by the seat of one's pants rarely turns out well.
> 
> I wanted to have a story that had a character manipulate the events of the books while being truly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. That's not a popular fanfiction concept, since a lot of fanfiction is wish-fulfillment and nobody sane desires to live a life worthless and alone, but eh. If anyone wants to take the basic premise of this story, go wild and have fun. I wish you nothing but the best. I don't think anything can salvage it; the only reason I persisted is because it holds sentimental value.


End file.
